


(Even If It's Just in Your) Wildest Dreams

by orphan_account



Series: Dreaming Wide Awake [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst, Domestic Bliss, Fluff, Getting Together, Kid Fic, M/M, Parallel Universes, Time Travel, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 17:50:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19323115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The dreams come as a surprise, then an inconvenience.They end with Cale in tears, mourning a life that was never truly his.





	(Even If It's Just in Your) Wildest Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction, and I make no profit for it. Title is from T-Swift's "Wildest Dreams".
> 
> These two are my kryptonite, I swear.

When he wakes up, the first thing Cale registers is the warmth: comforting, constant, and just the right side of too much. It makes him want to roll over and fall back asleep, to burrow further under the covers and pretend like the day hasn’t actually started.

He shuffles around and wonders how long he has until his alarm goes off, unwilling to open his eyes and look for fear that he won’t be able to fall back asleep.

He freezes abruptly.

There’s a heavy weight around his waist, solid and warm and decidedly human.

Holding himself still, he tries to focus past the lingering haze of sleep that has his body and mind moving slower than molasses. There’s definitely another person in his bed who was not there when he went to sleep last night. A very male person, if the flat chest and morning wood pressing against his back are any indication. He’s not wearing a shirt, and neither is Cale, but he knows he went to bed clothed last night. It’s too early in the summer for Calgary nights to be anything resembling warm.

His eyes flicker open.

The nightstand not too far away is a deep mahogany, all sleek finish and pointed corners, with two phones sitting on top, both unfamiliar. There’s a painting across from him, a beach scene of two men in suits with their backs to the painter, hands intertwined. That is not his nightstand. He’s never seen that painting. Even the color of the walls is wrong.

Taking a deep breath, he moves to get out of the unfamiliar bed and figure out what the hell is going on, but the arm around him tightens and pulls him further into a very bare, very male chest.

“Don’t go,” a voice whines sleepily. “It’s the offseason, babe. We don’t need to get up for another hour at least.”

The panic grows with every word, and there are alarm bells sounding in his head because something about that voice is familiar.

Not too far from the painting, there’s a door, and he can see tiled floors and marble countertops where it’s cracked open.

“Just need to use the restroom,” he mutters and gingerly lifts the arm off of him.

The man grunts but doesn’t object, letting his arm flop into the space Cale has vacated. “Hurry up before it gets any colder.”

Cale keeps his eyes on the bathroom door as he slides out from under the downy duvet. “It’s June. You’re not going to freeze. Stop being dramatic.”

“Fine,” the man huffs, “but I will miss you.”

The panic is all-consuming at this point, so he nods jerkily and tries not to run over to the bathroom or slam the door when he steps foot on the tile. He leans back against the cool wood, trembling.

It’s not June, he thinks. When he had gone to bed the night before, June was a week away, but he had told the guy it was June without a second thought. He hadn’t even been fully aware as the words had slipped from his lips, thoughtless and uncontrolled.

He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know who is in his bed—their bed? A bed. He doesn’t know how he got here, and he doesn’t know why the guy didn’t seem to think anything of waking up together. He called Cale babe, for fuck’s sake.

He shoves himself away from the door and stumbles to the counter.

Hands shaking, he turns on the faucet and lets the water pool in his palms before splashing it across his face, bracingly cold. Then he does it again, and one more time.

It wakes him up, which helps and doesn’t because he feels more able to face what is going, to try and figure out how the hell he ended up in a different room in a different house without waking up, but he is also becoming more and more aware of how fucked up the entire situation is. His heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest.

A towel hangs on the wall beside him, and he grabs it, scrubbing over his face roughly, trying to physically remove the last remnants of sleep. When he looks up, he jumps, and the towel falls to the ground.

Fuck.

His brow furrows.

Fucking fuck.

It’s him. It’s definitely him, but his face is older, thinner like the last of his baby fat has melted away, and his shoulders are broader, his middle thicker.

It’s him but not. At least, not the him that he saw in mirror when he brushed his teeth last night. He looks five or six years older at least, and he runs his fingers over the features he’s seen a million times, feeling like they’re brand new.

A gleam of gold catches his eye, and he nearly falls on his ass when he sees the ring, simple but beautiful, wrapped around the third finger of his left hand.

Holy fucking shit.

He curls his hands around the edge of the countertop when his knees go weak, and he thinks he might throw up, his stomach churning painfully and a chill sweat breaking over his forehead.

This is a dream. This has to be a dream. Or a nightmare. Something.

He went to bed single, alone, and twenty-years-old.

He is now married, very much not-alone, and somewhere in his mid-twenties.

This is a terribly realistic dream, he thinks, looking at the swirls in the marble and the multicolored tile beneath his feet. He never dreams this vividly, usually waking with the fragments of a thought or a feeling slipping away before he can stop them.

But he can handle this. It’s a dream, which means he will wake up eventually, and maybe that is something he can force if he works hard enough.

“Come on,” he murmurs. “Come on. Wake up. Wake up in your bed, in your room, without another—”

The words die in his throat suddenly because he hasn’t just dreamed that he’s married—he has dreamed that he’s married to a man, and that…that is not something he’s ever thought of or considered or wanted, yet here he is, just a door away from his dream husband.

There’s a morbid curiosity that overrides the panic when he thinks about opening that door and seeing the man’s face. He had been warm and fit, and he’d said it’s the offseason, which—which means his dream husband probably plays hockey, too.

Okay, that’s—okay.

He looks at himself in the mirror again, cataloguing all the changes, and decides that staying in the bathroom isn’t going to make a difference. He knows he’s in a dream and knows his new lucid dreaming abilities apparently do not extend to waking himself up, so there’s no point staying in the bathroom.

Anyways, if he stays in here too long, the man—his husband, fuck—might get worried and come knocking, and Cale has no idea how he would handle that. Being the one to go out and approach him first seems like the better choice; he would have some control at least.

Resolved, he pushes away from the counter and strides towards the door, swinging it open and peering out.

Nathan MacKinnon, half-naked and rumpled, raises an eyebrow at him, and Cale can feel the panic demanding attention once more. Holy shit.

“You forgot to flush,” Nate, his fucking dream husband, tells him with a smug grin.

“Right,” Cale says and does an about-face.

He walks to the toilet, flushes it, and watches the water disappear.

Nate is his dream husband. Nathan fucking MacKinnon, his new teammate, one of the A’s, the guy who had shouted at Cale after their first game about how bright the future was, is his goddamn dream husband.

This is probably not the future Nate had in mind when he said that. This is not the future Cale had in mind either.

He walks back into the bedroom, and Nate flips the covers back when he’s close enough.

There’s a lot of pale, toned skin on display, and Cale swallows thickly.

He stops near the edge of the bed, swaying forward like he wants to climb in and take up the same position he woke up in. “We should probably get up,” he says instead, and Nate frowns, shaking the covers insistently.

“It’s the offseason,” he says.

Cale’s mouth goes dry from the way Nate pouts at him, eyes half-lidded and unexpectedly tempting, and he licks his lips. “Yeah, but I don’t think I can go back to sleep,” he admits.

It’s not a lie; just the thought of crawling into bed with Nate has him hyperaware and jittery.

“Who said anything about sleep?” and Cale wonders if he could pinch himself until he wakes up because he can’t deal with Nate making eyes at him or the way his dick reacts uncomfortably fast.

“Think there’s another workout we should get in first,” he replies as calmly as he can, and Nate groans, head tipping back.

“Fine,” he sighs, then reaches out, and all Cale sees is the matching ring on his finger as he wraps a hand around Cale’s wrist and tugs him down, rolling them in the messy sheets.

When they come to a stop, Nate’s heavy over Cale, not painful or uncomfortable, just solid, pressing him down into the mattress.

“Still want a kiss though,” he murmurs and bends to capture Cale’s lips before he can spout an excuse about morning breath.

It’s not a light, good-morning peck.

Nate’s tongue slides against his, slick and dirty, and his teeth nip at Cale’s lips teasingly. He slots a thigh between Cale’s legs and pushes firmly against what is going from typical morning wood to a very insistent hard-on, trailing a path down over Cale’s jaw and lower.

“Sure I can’t persuade you to stay a little longer,” Nate whispers into the skin of his neck, and Cale knows it’s a dream, but this feels like a violation or a betrayal.

“No,” he answers, breathless, and Nate bites at his collarbone in punishment, the edge of his teeth running over the thin skin, making goosebumps erupt across Cale’s body.

“You’re no fun,” he says, but his tone is fond. He tilts his head up and presses a final kiss to Cale’s lips, closed-mouth but firm, and Cale bites down on a protest when he rolls away. “I’m going to take you apart tonight though.”

Cale has to close his eyes for a moment because those words coupled with the image of Nate’s muscled back and stacked ass climbing out of bed are too much for his frazzled nerves. He takes a few deep breaths, regrouping and talking his dick down, and listens as Nate opens and shuts drawers, rummaging through the dresser, hopefully for some clothes to cover all that bare skin.

“Now who’s being lazy,” Nate calls, and a lump of fabric lands on Cale’s face.

He holds it up, a pair of shorts and an Avs shirt. “This is your shirt.”

Nate hums. “Thought I’d give myself a little motivation.”

Cale doesn’t even know what to say to that, so instead he drags himself out of bed and pulls the clothes on, going to the closet to find a pair of shoes in his size.

In front of the overwhelming shelves, he closes his eyes and pinches himself, groaning when his surroundings don’t change.

Fuck.

He pulls on the first pair of shoes that fit, muttering to himself about ridiculous dreams and possible breakdowns before heading out of their—the bedroom.

They eat a light breakfast, Nate chattering about the pictures Gabe sent and the workout Brian has planned, and after, they make their way out to a small, side building that turns out to be a private gym.

On one wall, there’s an enormous photo of the team gathered around the Cup, and it steals Cale’s breath away. He steps forward and lets his eyes trace over their smiling faces. A few of the guys are unfamiliar; a few are missing. But there’s Gabe and EJ, Tyson and Sammy. There’s also Nate with an arm wrapped tight around Cale’s shoulders as they look at each other instead of the Cup. The smiles on their faces are painfully wide and terribly happy, and something in Cale’s chest aches.

“We’re starting with squats today,” Nate says from where he’s squinting at a tablet, and Cale nods, going to stand beside him.

They work around and with each other easily, not saying much as they move from weights to the bike to stretches.

Cale thinks about the strangeness of the dream, long and unbelievably detailed, because the alternative is watching sweat drip down Nate’s neck in slow, torturous rivulets.

After the workout, Nate makes them lunch and suggests an afternoon on the lake, fishing for their dinner. With a shrug, Cale agrees and regrets it within an hour when Nate strips off his shirt, flinging the lightly damp material at Cale with a cheeky grin before settling comfortably against the side of the boat, eyes trained on his line.

They manage to catch a couple good-sized fish, and they grill them for dinner, sitting on the back patio and sipping beers as the sun goes down. Cale’s eyes droop as the light fades, and Nate reaches over to tangle their fingers, thumb brushing over the back of his hand in soothing strokes.

“You’re about to fall asleep, aren’t you?” he teases, and Cale flushes hotly. “Come on,” Nate sighs, getting to his feet and offering Cale a hand.

When they’re both upright, his arm loops around Cale’s waist, and he guides them through the glass door and toward their bedroom.

“But the dishes,” Cale mumbles, and Nate chuckles.

“I’ll take care of them.”

In their room, he sits Cale on the bed and helps him undress, hands gentle and warm as he pulls off his shirt and shorts, tossing them into the laundry bin quickly before tucking Cale under the covers. When he turns away, Cale lets out an embarrassing, involuntary whine.

“Be right back,” he promises, turning to press a kiss to Cale’s forehead. “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, and I don’t want to leave everything outside.”

He slips away quickly, and Cale can hear the clatter of silverware and the clink of empty bottles as he brings them in, followed by the rush of running water and the click of the dishwasher.

When Nate returns, Cale’s on the edge of consciousness, barely aware of Nate moving around the room as he prepares for bed.

The lights switch off, and Nate climbs into bed, shuffling close enough to rest his head on Cale’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” Cale whispers before he even realizes it, arm automatically wrapping around Nate. He can feel the confused face Nate makes in the darkness, face scrunching up.

“For what?”

“We didn’t have sex,” Cale explains, too tired to filter himself, and Nate grins.

“It’s okay. I expect a blow job in the morning though.”

Cale hums. “I think I can manage that.”

\----

When he wakes up, he immediately looks around him, taking in the familiar shelf of trophies and the posters he’s had since before he left for college, and lets out a relieved sigh.

He’s alone in his bed, in his room in Calgary, and Nate is thousands of kilometers away in his own house in Nova Scotia.

They’re not married. They’re not dating. They’re just teammates.

Shaking himself, he crawls out of bed and pulls on the first clean shirt and shorts he finds, heading downstairs where he can hear his mom in the kitchen, preparing breakfast like she does every morning.

Fuck, that was a weird dream, he thinks and accepts the glass of orange juice she holds out to him, putting the dream and Nate out of his mind as he gets ready to go to the gym.

\----

He doesn’t think about it again, and his dreams return to their blurry, forgettable norm.

If he sometimes thinks about how well Nate’s body fit against his, no one needs to know.

\----

Cale drifts into consciousness slowly, eyes fluttering before coming open.

There’s a hand spread out on his chest, open and possessive, and he immediately stills, heart pounding against his ribs. He was alone last night; he knows it. He fell asleep in his room in Calgary alone.

This must be what déjà-vu feels like, he thinks, trying to swallow down the panic.

With a slow exhale, he tilts his head to the side.

He doesn’t know whether he’s surprised or not to find Nate making a reappearance in his dreams. He looks older this time. Not just a couple of years though, maybe a decade or more. He has crow’s feet and a few grays sprinkled in the reddish blonde of his hair.

Cale’s not sure what to think.

“I can feel you staring,” Nate grumbles, eyes opening slowly, and Cale jumps in shock, getting a sleepy laugh from…from his husband if the ring he can feel around his finger is any indication.

“Think I’m allowed to stare,” he replies and abruptly flushes. Apparently, he’s no better at controlling his mouth this time than he was the last.

Nate grins at him, lazy and slightly arrogant, and Cale can feel heat pooling low in his belly.

“Be careful. You don’t want to start something we can’t finish,” Nate warns, but he crawls across the small space between them and settles between Cale’s legs, making himself comfortable in the v of his thighs.

“Not sure I’m the main instigator,” Cale says. He wants to loop his arms around Nate’s neck and pull him down, wants to remind himself what it felt like to kiss Nate, what it felt like to move against him.

He doesn’t, but only just.

 “I don’t know,” Nate drawls, stroking a hand up Cale’s side, “you can’t look at me like that and expect not to take some of the blame.”

Cale hums. “I plead innocent.”

“Innocent?” Nate scoffs, and he rolls their hips together. Cale can’t help the way his breath catches and his hips hitch to meet Nate’s movement. “Don’t think I’d ever use that word to describe you.”

“Oh?” he breathes and thoughtlessly lifts a hand to card through Nate’s hair, nails scraping lightly over his scalp. “What would you use then?”

“Perfect,” Nates replies easily and presses a kiss to Cale’s nose. “Very sexy,” he continues, licking a stripe up Cale’s neck. “And surprisingly dirty,” he finishes, and he drops more of his weight on Cale, pinning him to the bed as he steals a filthy, open-mouthed kiss that leaves Cale breathless.

They move against one another in slow, torturous rolls, and Cale thinks he really should put a stop to this. It feels wrong to touch Nate like this, to press their mouths together and run his hands over Nate’s shoulders and across his broad back, but he feels dizzy and dazed and incapable of saying anything beyond Nate’s name.

“Damn it,” Nate suddenly says, and Cale pulls away.

“What—” is all he gets out before Nate rolls off of him.

The bedroom door bursts open, and two small bodies come rocketing into the room.

“Daddy, Papa! It’s time to get up! Wake up! Wake up!” The kids yell, diving onto the bed and knocking the air out of Cale.

He blinks at them, shocked speechless, and replays their words in his head, trying not to freak out too obviously.

“Sorry, we’re asleep for another hour,” Nate says easily and pulls the blanket over his head, faking a loud snore.

“Papa, no!” the little boy shouts and scrambles over the covers to pull the blanket away. Nate holds it tight, and the boy tugs harder, crying out protests and complaints. Suddenly, Nate lets go, and he tumbles back from the force, toppling onto his back with an outraged shout, and Nate leans over to tickle him.

Cale stares.

“Stop. Papa, please!” the boy cries. “Stop!”

“But you woke us up,” Nate says, fingers working over the boy’s sides mercilessly. “You deserve to get tickled for that.”

The boy slaps at his hands ineffectually, cheeks red with laughter. “We won’t do it again!” he shouts.

Nate laughs heartily but lets him go. “We don’t believe that one bit, do we?” he asks, turning to give Cale a commiserating look.

“No,” Cale murmurs, weak and breathy, completely overwhelmed by the scene before him. “No, we don’t.”

The little girl crawls up next to him, all pointy elbows and knees, and Cale winces when she presses at his bladder. “Daddy, since you’re already awake, can we go now?”

She’s talking to him.

Holy fuck, this little, bright-eyed girl is talking to him. She’s calling him dad.

If waking up married was improbable, waking up with children feels impossible. At least marriage includes sex and fun that he can pass off as his body asking for relief. Parenthood is poopy diapers and spaghetti messes, and though Cale loves kids, he doesn’t want them right now. Well, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want them.

“Sorry, Abbs,” Nate says when Cale is quiet for too long. “Daddy’s still waking up. You both need to get dressed, and we need breakfast. Then, we can go.”

“Okay!” she says and scrambles off the bed, turning to grab her little brother’s hand before running out of the room, shouting about her whale shirt.

Cale watches them leave.

He has kids. He has two kids. A son and a daughter that call him dad and Nate papa. They are married and have kids together.

Holy motherfucking shit.

Nate scoots closer, wraps an arm around his waist, and presses a kiss to his shoulder. “Can I get a raincheck for earlier?” he asks, lips brushing over Cale’s skin as he speaks.

Cale nods mutely.

“Good,” Nate murmurs and sucks a promising kiss to the sensitive skin beneath his jaw. “I can start on breakfast, if you want to go make sure those two are actually getting dressed.”

“Sure,” Cale says, finally finding his voice, and he follows Nate to the closet, making sure to dress similarly because he has no idea where they’re going today.

They separate at the door with a kiss, and Cale finds the stairs.

On the way up, he passes a wall of photos in mismatched but complementary frames. There’s one of Nate and Cale and their families around the cup, another of them holding a brand new baby in their arms, both grinning widely. There’s another of them on a couch with a little girl between them, helping her hold a small bundle that must be their son.

One photo, in particular, catches his eye. It’s on a beach with blue water and golden light, and Nate and Cale stand hand-in-hand with their back to the photographer. They’re in suits but barefoot.

Something about the photo seems familiar to Cale, like he’s seen it before but not quite.

When a shout comes from the second floor, he shakes himself and follows the sounds of laughter to one of the rooms, discovering the kids—his kids—trying to get the boy into a t-shirt that is much too small for him.

“Dad,” the girl whines, “Noah’s shark shirt is too small! It won’t go on.”

“I see that,” Cale says with a half-hearted grin. “We’ll have to find a different shirt for him to wear.”

“But I want to wear this one!” Noah cries from beneath the shirt, arms waving emphatically through the air. “We’re going to the aquarium. I have to wear my shark shirt.”

Well, that answers one of the million questions Cale has. “I’m sorry, bud. We’ll have to get you a new shark shirt because that one is definitely too small.”

“But I don’t have another shirt I can wear!”

Cale glances deliberately at the dresser and closet. “You have plenty of shirts.”

“But none with sharks!”

Nodding, Cale steps closer and tugs the too small shirt over Noah’s head. “I know. I’m sorry. We’ll have to get you another shark shirt that fits soon. How about we find something else for you to wear today though? The sooner you get dressed, the sooner we can go to the aquarium.”

Noah’s lip curls into a sad pout, and Cale pulls him into a hug. “I wanted to wear the shark shirt,” he says, sounding on the brink of tears.

“I know. Honey, I know,” he sighs, rubbing over his back like he did with Matt’s kids whenever they got hurt or upset. Then, he stands up and reaches down to take his son’s impossibly-small hand. “Let’s pick out a different shirt for today, okay? Papa’s getting breakfast ready, so we can eat as soon as you’re dressed and then leave.”

Noah trails after him to the closet, still frowning, and they go through more shirts than Cale owns before he settles on one that is “not as bad as all the others”.

When they get back downstairs, with only mild complaining and a targeted kick when the little girl—whose name Cale still doesn’t know—brags about her whale shirt, Nate has scrambled eggs and toast waiting for them.

They eat quickly, the kids talking excitedly about all the different animals they’re going to see, jellyfish and sea turtles and Nemo, and the chatter continues on the drive.

Cale is infinitely grateful Nate is the one driving because he has no idea where their house is or where the aquarium is. He feels like he should know that—it is his dream after all—but whatever makes sense in dreams?

He’s married to Nate, and they have two kids. Not knowing how to get to the aquarium is practically tame in comparison.

When they pull into the parking lot, the kids nearly leap out of the car, and Cale has to tumble out his door to get a hand around Noah’s wrist and pull him back before he stumbles into the path of a passing vehicle.

“Papa, look!” Abby (he finally learned her name on the drive) shouts once they’re inside, pointing at a mural that spans one wall. “It’s a whale just like on my shirt!”

“It is!” Nate responds with just as much enthusiasm, and Cale can’t help the almost painful fondness that fills his chest. “And look, there’s a shark for Noah!”

“Shark!” Noah shouts loudly, and Cale shushes him.

“We’re inside, buddy. We can’t shout.”

Noah looks up at him then turns to look around, noticing that he has the attention of everyone in the lobby. His cheeks turn a deep red. “Sorry,” he mumbles, turning to press his face against Cale’s leg.

“It’s alright,” Cale says and wraps an arm around him, leading him to the counter where Nate is buying their tickets.

“You ready to go see some more sharks?” Nate asks after he’s paid, and Noah nods vigorously, still clinging to Cale’s hand.

They spend hours wandering through the different exhibits, some more than once, and Cale smiles as Noah points out all the different animals he knows the names of, talking about the ink octopuses produce and the shock that eels give when threatened.

He notices a couple people staring or pointing, some even trying to take discreet pictures on their phones, but no one approaches them. Cale wonders if that’s the perk of having kids with them; nobody wants to disrupt a family outing.

They end up getting Noah an overpriced shirt in the gift shop when he sees one with  _two_ sharks on it, and on the drive home, Cale listens intently as the kids talk about the visit, telling the same story about the sea lions at least four times.

The rest of the day is spent at home, and Cale wonders if they’re both retired now. He doesn’t feel quite that old yet, so it might just be a day off.

They make mini pizzas for dinner, each person topping theirs how they want, and Abby decides they have to watch Finding Nemo before bed. Armed with pillows and blankets, they pile on the couch, and Cale thinks he should be worried when the kids are able to quote most of the lines from heart.

After tucking them into bed with kisses and stories, Nate and Cale make their way to their own bedroom and brush their teeth side-by-side. They crawl into bed, and Nate drags him close under the covers. Cale has a brief moment of panic when he thinks Nate is about to cash in on that rain check, but he just curls around Cale and presses a tired kiss to his hair.

“Love you,” he murmurs, and Cale’s heart thuds.

\----

He wakes up with a jerk, breathing fast.

Holy shit, he thinks, looking around the room.

That was another dream. That was another too-detailed, too-intimate dream about some indistinct and unwanted future with one of his teammates.

Fucking hell.

Shakily, he climbs out of bed and dresses, replaying the events of the dream in his mind as he heads downstairs and chokes down some breakfast, barely tasting the toast and oatmeal.

One wildly vivid dream is strange enough, but two within a few weeks of each other? Featuring the same person?

That’s not normal.

\----

He sleeps poorly over the next week, always worried that he is going to wake up with Nate in some weird Twilight Zone.

When nothing else happens, he brushes it off as a coincidence.

\----

A ringing phone wakes him up, loud and obnoxious, and he works a hand out from under the covers, slapping it on the nightstand. He curls his fingers around the offending object and drags it close to squint at the screen.

It says MacDaddy with a string of hearts and kissy emojis.

Who the fuck is MacDaddy?

He swipes his thumb over the screen. “Hello?”

“Oh shit, did I wake you?” Even through the fog of lingering sleep, he recognizes Nate’s voice.

Who changed his name in Cale’s phone? Last he knew, he had him listed as Nate, plain and simple.

“Yeah, but it’s alright,” he mumbles back, trying to figure out when and how someone got into his phone to change the contacts and if more than one has been altered. “Was gonna wake up soon anyways.”

“Fuck, I keep forgetting about the time difference. Sorry.”

Rubbing at his eyes, Cale sits up. Why would Nate need to remember the time difference between Calgary and Cole Harbour? And what does that mean  _keep_  forgetting?

“No worries. What’s up?”

Nate is quiet on the other end, enough that Cale can hear him breathe. “Just missed you,” he murmurs.

It sounds like a confession, but Cale might be reading into that too much. The last couple weeks have fucked with his head, and he’s probably incredibly, stupidly biased when it comes to Nate now. He needs to remember that this is the real Nate, not the Nate from Cale’s dreams, not the man he married.

“Yeah?” he says, hoping it comes across more neutral than it feels.

“Yeah. I know we talked last night, but…” he trails off, and Cale can feel his eyebrows dipping low.

He did not talk to Nate last night. He hasn’t talked to Nate since the season ended, unless you count the group text that is mostly just embarrassing pictures or dog photos. Or the other dreams. Those probably shouldn’t be counted though, for obvious reasons.

“Just couldn’t go a whole day without hearing my voice again?” he teases, shocking himself.

Holy fuck, this is bad. He needs to get over this or control it before he says something truly stupid or inappropriate.

“Yes,” Nate replies, matter-of-fact, and Cale feels lost, off balance. “I was looking at tickets again this morning.”

Nothing about this makes any sense. “Oh?”

“Do you think if I visited your parents would let me stay in your room or would I have to stay in a guest room?”

What the fuck.

“I don’t think my parents are under any illusion that we don’t sleep together,” he says, the words pouring out of him involuntarily, and he blanches.

“Sure, but maybe they wouldn’t want me sleeping with their son under their roof.”

This conversation is quickly spiraling out of Cale’s control.

“I don’t think putting you in a different room would stop that from happening,” he says, and it comes out flirtatious and teasing in a way he never is.

Jesus fuck, what is wrong with him?

“Good to know,” Nate answers, husky and low, and this is not real life, Cale realizes quite suddenly.

This is another dream. This is another bizarre, impossible creation of Cale’s subconscious. He and Nate must only be dating in this dream though because there’s no ring on Cale’s finger and he is in his own bedroom in Calgary.

Looking around, he can spot the small but important differences. There are a couple new trophies and awards on the shelves, a framed photo on the dresser that Cale would bet is him and Nate though he can’t make it out from his position, and—most damning of all—a well-worn Halifax Mooseheads shirt hanging over the back of his chair.

 This is stranger than the time they had kids. Who the fuck dreams about being in a long-distance relationship with one of their teammates?

“I need to go work out,” Cale suddenly blurts. He is confused and frustrated and doesn’t understand what any of this is supposed to mean.

“You can’t wait ten minutes?” Nate asks, and Cale bites back the automatic response that yes, he can definitely wait ten minutes. “I’d make it worth your while.”

Fucking fuck. “How about we postpone that until tonight, hmm? When we both have more time.”

Nate huffs. “Fine, but we’re going to do it how I want then.”

Cale has no idea what that means, but he shivers anyways. “Deal,” he responds breathily.

“Kay, love you.”

Well, shit.

“I—I love you, too,” he stammers, and Nate tells him to enjoy his workout before ending the call.

Dazed, Cale sets the phone down and takes another look around the room, noting the laundry basket that is much fuller than it was last night and the closet door that isn’t completely shut. This is another dream. Another figment of Cale’s imagination where he and Nate are together.

What the fuck.

He rolls out of bed and throws on the closest shirt and shorts, determinedly averting his gaze from the Mooseheads shirt and the photo on the dresser, thinking about how two is a coincidence but three is a pattern.

When he’s dressed, he grabs his phone and can’t help it when he taps at the screen to see what he has set as the background.

It’s him and Nate. Of fucking course it is.

They’re not kissing, not even holding hands. It could easily be passed off as a photo of two teammates and friends, arms around shoulders as they grin at the camera, but Cale knows the truth behind it, noting how close they stand, how Nate’s fingers curl around his arm like he wants to pull him even closer.

He nearly trips on the way downstairs, and Taylor laughs when he takes a seat at the table. At least that hasn’t changed.

“Morning, C,” Laura greets, sliding a glass of orange juice his way, and he smiles back. “Did you sleep better?”

Cale doesn’t know what the comparison is, so he shrugs and goes to put a bagel in the toaster, fishing the cream cheese out of the fridge as he waits.

“You’d probably sleep better if you and Nate didn’t stay up late having phone sex,” Taylor informs him casually, and Cale nearly drops the cream cheese, fumbling it several times before setting it firmly on the counter.

“Taylor!” Laura chides.

“What? It’s true.”

Sighing, Laura gives him a patented mom look. “That doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to say something like that.”

Oh my god, she didn’t disagree. She didn’t fucking disagree.

“Anyways, don’t you have somewhere to be this morning?” she asks Taylor.

“I don’t need to leave for—”

“Traffic is bad,” she interrupts and makes a shooing motion.

Cale’s bagel pops out of the toaster, and he busies himself with a knife and the open cream cheese as Taylor leaves and Cale tries not to think about his mom knowing he and his dream boyfriend have phone sex.

When the front door clicks shut, Cale considers taking his bagel to go, but Laura speaks up before he’s able to. “Come sit down, sweetheart.”

“If traffic is bad, I should probably leave now,” he replies because he really doesn’t want to have whatever conversation she is about to start.

“It’s not that bad.”

“But—”

“This shouldn’t take very long.”

Frowning, he looks at his bagel, smothered in uneven clumps of cream cheese, and wonders how rude it would be to leave anyways. Pretty rude, he thinks and goes to sit at the table, warily watching his mom who has her bad-news smile in place.

“Your dad and I have been talking—”

“We won’t keep doing it if it bothers you,” he says before she can continue.

“What?”

Swallowing, he looks down at this bagel and back up at her. “We won’t keep having phone sex if it bothers you,” he mumbles, and his cheeks light up, a fiery red.

“Okay, that is not what I was going to say,” she says slowly, and he sees her hand falter as she reaches out for him. “That doesn’t bother me…mostly because I don’t know when it’s happening nor do I want to know. Anyways,” she continues, finally resting a hand over his, “there’s nothing wrong with that. You and Nate are in a serious, mature relationship. I know you have sex, and I know that has to be adapted considering the distance between you two.”

If there was ever a time to wake-up from a dream, it’s now.

Too bad Cale hasn’t figured out how to do that yet.

“So I have no problem with that. What I wanted to say,” she says, squeezing his hand gently, “is that your dad and I have been talking about how quiet you’ve been lately and how you haven’t been going out with your friends as much as you did last summer.”

Cale has no idea how much he goes out with his friends. “Just tired from training,” he says because that’s a safe answer.

She nods. “I know, but I think it’s more than that. Maybe you’re a bit more tired compared to last year, but you…” she lets out a heavy sigh, and Cale can suddenly see how tired she looks, “you seem sad. You’re so much quieter and withdrawn, and I don’t think anything else has happened that would make you feel that way, so the only difference from last summer is Nate—”

“I’m not breaking up with him,” he says forcefully, taking them both by surprise.

“And I don’t think you should,” she responds calmly. “That is not what I was going to say.”

Embarrassed, he ducks his head and stares at a particularly large chunk of cream cheese.

“I know you two wanted to give each other some space, since you spend so much time together in Denver, and I respect that decision and the reasons for it. It’s been two months though, and I can see how much you miss him, so I was going to tell you that you should consider inviting him out here or go visit him in Nova Scotia. You have another month and a half until training camp, and I’d like you to be happy during that time.”

“I’m not unhappy,” Cale says, nudging at one of the cream cheese chunks. “I haven’t been not happy this summer. I love spending time with you guys.”

She pats his hand. “I know that. We know that. But you can enjoy being with us and still miss Nate. Those aren’t mutually exclusive things.”

Cale shrugs.

“It is absolutely your choice, but I think it might be good for you—good for both of you—so just give it some thought. Talk to Nate about it, and you can decide together what’s best for you.”

“If he came here, he’d stay in my room, right?” he blurts and immediately flushes.

Laura grins good-naturedly. “As long as I don’t have to see or hear anything, yes.”

Cale jerks back, hand knocking dangerously against his glass of orange juice as he stutters out a reply. “Of course,” he stammers. “We wouldn’t—we won’t—no way would—no. You wouldn’t see or hear anything.”

Laughing, Laura stands up and circles the table reaching out to pull Cale into a hug. “Good. I’m glad to hear it.”

Cheeks red, he returns the hug.

“Now you really do need to leave if you want to be on time,” she says when they pull apart, and he nods.

“Thanks, Mom.”

She runs a hand through his hair with a soft, fond look. “You’re welcome. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” he says and grabs his bagel to go.

In the car, he pulls out his phone and unlocks it, taking a large, cream-cheese-filled bite of his bagel.

To MacDaddy (heart and kissy face emojis) (9:04AM)  
My mom said you can stay in my room.

From MacDaddy (heart and kissy face emojis) (9:05AM)  
Are you cool with that?

To MacDaddy (heart and kissy face emojis) (9:05AM)  
Is that actually a question?

From MacDaddy (heart and kissy face emojis) (9:06AM)  
No, not that.  
Are you okay with me coming to visit?  
I know we hadn’t really decided.

To MacDaddy (heart and kissy face emojis) (9:07AM)  
If you want to come, I want you here.

From MacDaddy (heart and kissy face emojis) (9:07AM)  
Sick.  
I can be there tomorrow.

\----

Cale’s eyes fly open, and he shoots up in bed, head swiveling to look around the room. An old Bandits shirt is flung over his chair, and when he opens his phone, the background is a picture of his family after his first game in the playoffs. Nate is just Nate in his contacts.

He sighs in relief, heart thundering in his chest.

What the fucking hell was that?

What the goddamn fucking hell was that?

The first dream was a fluke, the second a coincidence. A third though? He can’t brush off a third and keep pretending like these are normal dreams he’s having. No. They’re too focused, too detailed, too long and elaborate to pass off as regular fare in the dream world.

With trembling fingers, he taps at his phone, hoping the Internet can provide some insight.

It does.

But it doesn’t.

After a good half hour scrolling through feeds on Reddit and Quora, he’s learned more about lucid dreaming, parallel universes, and premonitions than he ever wanted, but he still doesn’t feel any closer to understanding the dreams than he did before. There are a million interpretations, a million explanations for why Nate keeps popping up in his dreams, and he has no idea which, if any, is true.

Fuck. He can’t deal with this, doesn’t want to deal with this.

So he dreams about being married to one of his teammates and having kids with him, what about it? That doesn’t have to mean anything. Plenty of the answers on different forums said dreams can mean absolutely nothing.

Maybe he’s just stressed about preparing for the upcoming season—his official rookie season—or maybe he misses the guys, misses hockey, and this is his brain’s way of coping with that.

He doesn’t know and doesn’t want to waste his time trying to figure it out when it could all be for naught.

The dreams haven’t changed anything, not really. If he gets off thinking about Nate once or twice, no one has to know. The rest of his life goes on as it should.

\----

He’s still wary when he goes to bed each night, so he starts leaving random items on his nightstand or desk to help him know he’s not in a dream.

It’s a strange comfort, waking up and seeing the puck from his first goal or the drawing one of his little cousins gave him after the season ended.

\----

As soon as he feels a warm breath across his face, Cale is on alert.

Someone is in his bed.

He opens his eyes.

Revision: Nate is in his bed. At this point, who the fuck else would it even be?

Cale stares because in his fucked up, possibly-deranged mind this is his husband, so he’s allowed to fucking stare.

Nate is older than in any of the other dreams (visions, universes, or whatever the fuck these are according to the Internet). He’s still not old, just older, with a few more wrinkles and gray hairs than the last time he saw him. Cale wouldn’t be surprised if he’s retired now.

With bated breath, he lifts a cautious hand and reaches out to cup Nate’s cheek, fingers trembling slightly as they touch the warm skin.

Nate doesn’t move.

Slowly, Cale traces over the familiar lines of his face, lingering on the scruffy cut of his jaw and the tempting bow of his lips.

“What are you doing?” Nate asks through a yawn, then nips at Cale’s fingers, eyes opening to reveal the pale blue Cale would recognize anywhere at this point.

“Nothing.”

Grinning, Nate catches a finger between his teeth and laves his tongue over the sensitive pad. Cale’s breath stutters out.

“You sure?” Nate asks, shifting closer. “It doesn’t seem like nothing.”

A knock sounds at their door. The kids must be old enough now to understand they can’t just burst into their parents’ bedroom without permission.

The door opens.

Well, at least they learned to give a warning before charging in.

“Dad, Papa, have you seen my shin pads?” a girl, probably Abby if his dreams (visions, whatever) are as consistent as he thinks, asks. She’s much taller, long-limbed and willowy now.

“Didn’t we talk to you about waiting until we said you can come in?” Nate asks, not moving away from where he’s lying close to Cale.

With a flick of the eyes, Abby takes in their positions, and her face scrunches up in disbelief and disgust. “Were you seriously about to have sex?” she asks, and Cale flushes a deep red as the words come out of his dream daughter’s mouth. “You’re too old to have morning sex.”

Nate scoffs and settles a very deliberate hand on Cale’s hip beneath the covers, thumb tracing lightly over the bone as he watches their daughter. “If I’m young enough to beat you on the ice, I’m young enough to have morning sex with my husband.”

Her nose crinkles, and she shakes her head, muttering something about gross, embarrassing parents.

“Hey, you should be happy,” Nate says. “This is proof of how much your parents love each other, even after twenty five years together.” He presses a wet kiss to Cale’s cheek, loud and smacking, and Abby gags.

“I already know that, though. I don’t need to see it.”

The twenty five years together comment sticks in Cale’s brain.  Fuck, that’s a long time; that’s his whole career. They would have had to get together within Cale’s first season or two. Which would make sense here because they were together in his last dream and that was just next summer or maybe the summer after.

Actually, it’s a little disturbing how well that lines up.

“Don’t walk into our room without permission, and you won’t have to see it,” Nate retorts teasingly, pulling Cale out his thoughts, and Abby groans. “Now, you mentioned something about shin pads? Did you leave them in your old bag? I know you put most of the stuff in the wash before you switched, but maybe you forgot those.”

“Oh yeah! Do you know where my old bag is?”

Nate’s smile is a bit longsuffering. “Should be in the linen closet upstairs, if you put it where Dad told you to.”

Abby averts her eyes. “And if I didn’t?” she asks, faux-casually, and Nate laughs.

“If you didn’t, it’s probably still in the laundry room.”

“Great, thanks,” she says and spins to walk away.

“How about you put it where it’s supposed to go this time?” Nate shouts after her, and she offers a begrudging affirmative in return.

When the door click shuts, he turns back to Cale and moves forward for a kiss, hand sliding around Cale’s back to pull him closer.

“Don’t we need to take them to school?” Cale murmurs because he still doesn’t think he should be doing anything with dream Nate. It feels wrong when he’s going to go back to Denver in the fall and spend nearly every day with the real Nate.

Nate hums noncommittally and presses their lips together, tongue stroking lazily against Cale’s lips until he opens them reluctantly, feeling his will weaken as Nate’s hands become more insistent.

When Nate breaks the kiss to trace a path across his cheek and to his ear, Cale tries to get a hand between them to push him away but all he manages to do is brush against the very obvious erection Nate is sporting, eliciting a low groan from his husband.

“We can be quick,” Nate says, nipping at his earlobe, and Cale shivers.

“We are not about to be late taking our kids to school because we were too busy having sex.”

Nate pouts. “Fine. Then, we can have sex after practice before we need to go to Noah’s thing.”

Practice? There’s no way Nate still plays, and Cale would be surprised if he does either. There’re only a couple years between them.

“We’ll see if we have time,” Cale says, trying to be the reasonable one. “If not, we’ll just plead old age to Abby and Noah after dinner and come to bed early. That way we won’t have to rush.”

He hopes to god he’ll wake up before dinner.

“We could take a bath,” Nate suggests, and a shudder runs through Cale. For a brief moment, he can feel warm hands on his shoulders, heat around his dick, and water everywhere. It’s like a memory, the phantom sensations more than imagined.

Cale shakes himself. “Yeah, we could,” he says roughly and pulls away from Nate, crawling out of bed and heading to the bathroom.

As he dresses, he can’t help but notice how the closet looks exactly like it did when he dreamed about their aquarium field trip. The clothes have changed but the layout is the same, as is the bedroom. When he looks to the stairs, he can see the pictures lining the wall. There are new ones of the kids on the ice or at school, but Cale can pick out the ones he’s seen before in the same places they were before.

It’s eerie how well his mind has reproduced the house, the kids, Nate. It feels unnatural.

“I made you and Papa breakfast,” a voice says when Cale gets to the kitchen, and he looks over to see Noah, a good foot taller than in his last dream.

“You did?”

“Yeah,” Noah grins and holds out a plate of lumpy burritos. “Abby said we would need breakfast-to-go because you and Papa were having special time and wouldn’t be able to make anything. She helped me cook the eggs, but I put the burritos together all by myself since she needed to get her gear for the game tonight.”

Cale’s cheeks are red when Noah finishes, and he really hopes his son is young enough to not understand what Abby meant when she said that, but he doubts it. “That’s awesome, bud. Those look great.”

Noah lights up under the praise and sets the plate aside to wrap his thin arms around Cale’s waist. “We even put some spinach in!”

“Perfect,” Cale says and returns the hug, trying not to freak out as he looks around the kitchen and finds it exactly how he saw it last time, though the refrigerator looks new, which is a strange detail to change in his opinion.

“Papa!” Noah shouts and lets go of Cale to hurl himself at Nate. “I made breakfast!”

Nate wraps him up and lifts him in the air for a moment. “You’re the best, kiddo. First star of the game.”

Noah has a small, pleased grin on his face when he buries his head against Nate’s stomach, and it reminds Cale so much of himself, he can’t believe it.

“Finally ready to go?” Abby asks, walking into the kitchen with a hockey bag over her shoulders, and grabs a burrito.

“What do you mean finally?” Nate demands, letting Noah go to pull her into a playful headlock. “I won’t even need to speed to get you there on time.”

“Whatever,” she sighs, looking pained.

Cale doesn’t buy it.

“Alright, do you both have your backpacks?” They nod. “Gear?” Abby lifts the bag. “Costume?” Noah’s eyes go wide, and he tears out of the room, feet pounding up the staircase. “Knew there had to be something,” Nate grumbles.

Cale wonders what the costume is for.

“Got it!” Noah shouts, crashing back down the stairs. “Let’s go!”

Cale grabs the plate of burritos and follows them to the garage, sliding into the front seat (they have the same car but a newer model), and Nate steers them onto the street.

As they drive through the neighborhood, Cale watches the houses pass by and thinks they look an awful lot like they did the last time he was here, though some have additions or new colors. Either, he should be impressed with how well his mind has recreated the dream or disappointed in how lazy he is to not have invented a different neighborhood or house.

They drop Abby off first with loud shouts of ‘I love you’ from Nate and Noah and a quiet goodbye from Cale. Then they take Noah to his school and leave with promises to be there at two for his performance. (The costume makes more sense now.)

After, they head to the Pepsi Center, and Cale feels something in him relax as they walk through the familiar halls. Mostly familiar, he amends, when he notices the new Cup years added to the wall outside the locker room.

He doesn’t play anymore, neither does Nate, but they’re coaches, and Cale will take it because even outside of his dreams he can’t see a future where he leaves hockey behind after retirement.

The players are all different, the coaching staff and trainers, too. Only a couple faces look familiar, and Cale wonders how he decided which would stay and which wouldn’t.

God, his mind is fucked up.

Practice is good. He needs a moment to get used to his new body on skates, making slow circles around the rink as he tests his skills, finds out what he can still do and what he can’t, while also discovering a few new moves he clearly picked up in the interim.

He works with the defense and can’t help but feel vastly underprepared when he looks around and realizes that all of these guys are probably older than he actually is. Muscle memory takes over though, and he guides them through drills, surprising himself with some of the things he sets up and wondering if he should maybe try that himself.

After practice, he and Nate pile back into the car and grab lunch at a café close by, greeting the workers like they do this every day, and Cale thinks he’s seen this place before, has heard the guys (maybe even Nate) mention it. He’s never been though.

They talk about the different players and the game tomorrow night, and Cale finds all the little details his mind has created strange (like the granules of sugar on their table from someone’s morning coffee or the different stats Nate spouts about guys).

When they’re done, they make their way back to Noah’s school and work their way through the crowded auditorium, snagging two seats and looking through the assembled kids until they spot Noah and wave. He waves back, grinning wide, and Nate pulls his phone out to snap a few pictures. The resolution is a hell of a lot better than Cale could get on this own phone in the current time.

The program turns out to be pretty typical elementary fare with each kid getting a line and the teachers holding up cue cards in case anyone stumbles. Noah is one of the leads, and despite the nerves Cale can see him fighting, he seems to enjoy it, making the crowd laugh as he jumps around the stage.

When it ends, Cale is one of the first to stand, clapping proudly as he looks at Noah’s beaming face while Nate snaps a million more pictures beside him.

Shortly after, the teachers dismiss them with a reminder about the sixth grade graduation in a few weeks, and Noah hops down from the old risers, bounding over to them and throwing himself into their open arms.

“That was amazing!” Nate says. “You crushed it, bud.”

“It was really, really good,” Cale agrees and pulls him closer, sandwiching him between them.

“Did you see me dance? I didn’t mess up this time!”

“We sure did. You were awesome up there.”

Grinning, Noah slides out of their arms and grabs their hands, dragging them through the crowded auditorium. “Thanks! Mrs. Lopez said we should look at some of the theater camps they have at the performing arts center this summer.”

“That could be cool,” Nate says easily, and Cale likes that he’s okay letting their son go to theater camp—their dream son.

This is a dream, he reminds himself. This is not reality, not his life, not his husband and child.

But it feels real as they walk through the hallways of the school and grab Noah’s backpack. Denver looks real when they’re on the highway, driving to Abby’s game. The chill air of the rink feels real when they arrive, as does the cool glass beneath their hands when Abby gets a clean, hard hit in the second and they hop to their feet.

It’s not real though. It’s not.

During intermission, Noah asks if he can get a bag of popcorn and insists on going alone, (“Dad, it’s right up there,” he groans, pointing to the concession stand. “You’ll be able to see me.”) and Cale relents, holding out a five dollar bill.

Noah grins and runs up the stairs, waving the money excitedly, and Cale turns back to watch the Zamboni circle, leaving a clean sheet of ice in its wake.

Nate reaches over and threads their fingers together, giving a gentle squeeze that Cale returns without a thought.

To their left, someone clears their throat. “Excuse me,” a man says, and they both turn.

Cale is shocked to find someone at least a decade or maybe two older than him—older than the real him at least, probably still younger than dream him. Fuck, this is complicated.

“Hi,” Nate greets and holds out a hand. Cale does the same.

“Hi, it’s great to finally meet you. I knew you had a kid on one of the teams, but I didn’t know which one, so I’m glad I saw you before I left.”

Cale smiles politely and nods at the man, waiting for the moment when he pulls out an old receipt or a program and asks for an autograph.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” he continues, and Cale’s brow furrows at the unexpected words. “My son is on the U16 team, and he’s gay. He came out to us last year, and I can’t tell you how important it was for him and for our family to have you two as an example, to know that there was a place for him on the ice and in the locker room.”

Looking up at the man’s earnest face, Cale doesn’t know what to say. He’s not out; he’s not even sure if he’s gay or bi at this point. He just happens to have very domestic, sometimes intimate dreams about a male teammate that he occasionally jerks off to when he wakes up.

“I know it wasn’t always easy after your came out, but you never let that stop you, and you showed everyone that you can still play and win no matter what. You made things a lot easier for my son and for our family, and I wanted to thank you for that. It really has made all the difference for us.”

A lump sticks in Cale’s throat, thick and unmoving, and he tries to swallow around it but can’t. Nate wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him closer.

“It means a lot to us to hear that your son is still playing,” he says, and Cale nods. “That was one of the main reasons we wanted to be out, to make sure people knew that being gay didn’t affect how they played and that there’s a place for them in the NHL or anywhere else they want to be.”

The man gives them a watery smile and reaches out to shake their hands once more. “It made all the difference, so thank you.”

He walks away, and Cale ducks his head against Nate’s neck, overwhelmed.

“You good?” Nate asks, rubbing a hand up and down his back.

“Yeah, just…” He doesn’t know what to say, can’t explain the way his chest constricts thinking about the man’s son and countless others looking to him and Nate as examples. He feels like an imposter, undeserving of the praise because this isn’t real. None of this is real, even though the sound of skates on ice and the heat of Nate beside him seem real. It’s all a dream, all in his head.

“I know,” Nate murmurs into his hair, pressing a gentle kiss to the graying strands. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” and it hurts, like the words are ripped out of him.

\----

He comes awake with a gasp, choking on the words and the tears clogging his throat. A few errant drops trickle down his cheeks and onto the pillow, and he rubs at his eyes.

That was awful.

That was fucking awful.

He rolls onto his stomach and pushes himself onto his hands and knees, staring at the worn fabric of his pillowcase.

Fucking hell, that sucked.

There’s a soft knock at the door, and he has a brief moment of panic when he wonders whether it’s Abby or Noah about to charge into their room again before he catches sight of the puck on his desk and lets out a shaky breath.

“Come in,” he says, flopping onto his back and scrubbing a perfunctory hand over his face.

Gary’s head pokes in. “You alive in here?” he asks, teasingly. “I know it’s your day off, but eleven is late even by those standards.”

“Yeah,” Cale croaks, voice still rough with emotion. He clears his throat. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Gary frowns and slips into the room, closing the door gently behind him. “You okay, bud?” he asks, crossing the room and taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “Did you sleep okay?”

Throwing an arm over his eyes, he shrugs. “Just had a weird dream.”

“What about?”

Cale shrugs again, and Gary huffs.

“Alright. What made it weird?”

Another shrug.

“Cale, bud, it can’t be that bad. I’m sure whatever it is far less embarrassing than what I’m thinking.”

Scandalized, Cale lifts his arm enough to eye his dad. “It wasn’t embarrassing,” he protests because he does not need his dad thinking he just woke up from a wet dream or something. “It was just weird.”

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know. It felt real. It didn’t feel like a dream at all; it felt like real life.”

Gary hums. “That is pretty weird, I guess.” He pauses, and Cale knows he’s watching him, eyes ever observant. “Is that all that made it weird?”

Cale shakes his head.

Gary waits.

“Someone…in the dream, someone was thanking me for doing something important, something that changed his family’s life, that changed a lot of people’s lives.”

“Is this something you’ve already done?”

Cale shakes his head.

“Is it something you could do?”

He tenses, body going rigid as he considers the question, a million thoughts pinballing through his brain.

“Yeah, I guess,” he finally says.

“Would you want to do it?”

Cale lets out a breathy laugh. What a fucking question.

No is the immediate response. Yes is the quiet whisper that follows.

“I don’t know,” is the answer he settles on.

Gary makes a thoughtful noise. “You should maybe give that some thought then,” he says gently. “If it’s really that important, you should think about it.”

Cale doesn’t know what to say.

“You don’t have to do that now, though,” Gary goes on. “We have a date with the green in an hour, so don’t spend too much more time up here.”

Lifting his arm, Cale looks at his dad and feels like he’s fourteen again and trying to figure out whether to go into the AJHL or WHL. “What if the important thing is also really hard? What if it’s something some people might not like or agree with?”

Gary nods, considering. “Important things tend to be harder,” he says. “That’s what makes them worth it. But it doesn’t matter what other people think, whether they agree or disagree. You shouldn’t do anything because other people want you to. You should do it because you want to, and that’s all that matters. If it’s important to you, and you  _want_ to do it, then do it. But don’t do it because someone else thinks you should or don’t not do it because someone thinks you shouldn’t.”

Cale lets out a slow breath. “I know,” he sighs, and Gary nods.

“You do, and you’ll figure it out, whatever it is.” He reaches out a hand and rests it on Cale’s shoulder, warm and comforting. “Just know that your mom and I are here for you, and we always will be. If there’s anything you want to tell us or talk to us about, we’re here.”

Cale’s eyes are wet. He curls into a sitting position and pulls Gary into a hug. “Thanks.”

“Anytime, kiddo.”

\----

The conversation stays in the back of Cale’s mind when they golf later that day and when he works out the next morning. It hovers at the edge of his consciousness each time Nate’s name pops up on his phone with a witty retort in the group chat and each time he reads another article about the bright future ahead of the Avs.

He thinks about it when a friend says he should meet his cousin, a nice girl who just finished her first year of college, and he declines. He thinks about it when he wraps a fist around himself in the shower and can’t help but think of Nate and that bath they never got. He thinks about it when he crawls into bed alone and wishes he could curl up with Nate, warm and cozy.

He doesn’t do anything though, doesn’t call Nate or respond to any of his texts in the group chat.

He continues with his summer, but he thinks about it an awful lot.

\----

There’s a roar around him, the sound of thousands of clapping hands and stomping feet, and there are people everywhere, pressing in around him, grabbing jerseys and yelling incoherently.

“Number two!” someone shouts.

“Fucking did it!” someone else yells.

“Move you dicks,” another voice says, and Cale turns to see Nate shoving through the huddle of teammates, his gloves and helmet abandoned somewhere on the ice. “Let me through!”

When he’s close enough, Cale reaches out and fists a hand in his jersey to pull him in. “We did it!” he shouts over the din. “We got another one!”

Nate’s answering smile is brilliant, stretching wide over his bearded cheeks. “We fucking showed them,” he says fiercely, and then he raises a hand and cups it around the back of Cale’s neck, fingers sliding over the sweat-slick skin.

Everything seems to slow down suddenly. Cale can see their teammates jumping around them, can hear the home crowd roaring its approval after another Stanley Cup win, can feel the adrenaline still thrumming through him from the last few minutes of the game.

He knows it’s another dream, but he only has a moment to think about that before Nate’s lips are pressed against his, hard and insistent and unashamed, even with tens of thousands of people watching them.

Cale should pull away. He knows he shouldn’t take advantage of Nate like this (in this world, they may be married, but in Cale’s world, they’re barely friends), but he just won the fucking Cup, the fucking Stanley Cup. Even though this is a dream, he thinks he deserves to kiss his husband in celebration.

The crowd shouts its approval, and Cale feels blessed to play in a city that would accept them, that would support them. He drags Nate closer, fingers catching in fabric of his jersey, and someone nearby laughs.

“Keep it PG, boys,” Gabe says. “There are children in the crowd.”

Nate growls in annoyance, and Cale shivers from it, grateful he’s in full gear so no one can see how quickly his body responds to the sound.

With a final, filthy swipe of the tongue, Nate pulls away and presses their foreheads together, grin incandescent with joy. “I fucking love you.”

The dull ache Cale feels at those words is overwhelmed by the electrifying happiness of a Cup win. “I love you, too,” he shouts and thinks he should be worried how true the words feel. “So, so much.”

Nate steals another kiss, quick and full of promise, before moving to whisper in his ear. “When we get home,” he says, lips just a breath away, “I’m going to lay you out on our bed and give you everything you deserve for that pass, for this whole damn series.” Cale swallows down a moan and prays that the rising flush doesn’t look any different from the post-game red of his cheeks. “I’ll take my time, eat you out just the way you like. Then, I’ll open you up and show you exactly how much I love you.”

Cale hasn’t felt this shaky on skates since he was three years-old and just learning how to keep his balance. He can only nod in reply, and Nate smirks, confident and knowing.

“Let’s go, boys,” Gabe calls. “Bettman is here.”

“You’re going to get the Conn Smythe,” Cale tells Nate, and he doesn’t understand how he can be so sure of that.

“Should go to you,” Nate replies easily, tangling their fingers as they skate over to the team.

“No, this one is yours.”

Nate shrugs, and they pretend to care as Bettman runs through the same speech he gives every year about applauding both teams for their efforts and making sure everyone is recognized for the work they put in. When he calls Nate’s name for the Conn Smythe, Cale beams at him.

“Told you.”

“Couldn’t do it without you,” Nate says and pulls him in for another kiss before skating over to Bettman and taking the trophy.

Gabe gets the Cup next, and Cale watches in awe as he takes his victory lap, silver high over his head. It’s like every dream Cale had growing up, just with some small twists.

Beside him, Nate grins. “You ready?” he asks, and Cale doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be ready for, but Nate tugs at his hand, and he follows easily.

In front of them, Gabe holds out the Cup out with a bright smile. “We did it. You did it!” he shouts as he hands it over, and Cale gets a hand around the bottom. “You fucking did it!”

“We fucking did it,” Nate corrects and grips the top, turning to Cale. “Fuck ‘em all, right?”

“Fuck ‘em all,” Cale agrees, and they hoist the Cup high, drawing a deafening roar from the crowd.

They skate slowly, Cup in the air and fingers interlocked, and Cale can see a little girl standing by the glass with a pride flag in hand, tears streaming down her face. Cale nudges Nate, and they lift their hands to wave at her.

When they’ve finished, they hand the Cup off to Tyson, who looks like a kid at Christmas as he takes it in hand, and go to meet their families.

Laura gets to them first and draws them into a hug, crying. “I’m so proud of you both. So proud! You got another one, just like you said you would.” They nod, grinning, and accept hugs from the rest of their families, not a dry eye among them as they tell them how proud they are and how amazing it is that they won another Cup.

When Nate is pulled away for an interview, he drags Cale along, too, and beams at the cameras as he talks about the series and the game, the last period and the pass Cale made that let him get the GWG, never once letting go of Cale’s hand.

Pictures come next, and Cale can’t help but stare at the Cup, shiny and perfect and theirs, as he takes his place beside Nate. They huddle around the Cup and grin until their cheeks ache and management is satisfied. Then, someone shouts about champagne and cold beer, and they cheer, pushing one another towards the locker room where they’re met with more alcohol than Cale knows what to do with.

He accepts the bottle someone presses into his hand and gives it a few good shakes before popping the cork and watching it spray across the room in a foamy arch. Someone whoops to his left and suddenly he can feel the chill of iced champagne against his side.

By the time Nate wraps an arm around his shoulders and whispers in his ear about heading home, champagne coats the floor and has soaked through Cale’s shirt and underarmour. He’s not blackout drunk, but he’s had enough to make him loose and pliant, so he just smiles back at Nate and nods, trying not to get too emotional when he notices that Nate has put his ring back on.

Cale has his on, too. He’s not exactly sure when that happened.

As they walk toward the doors, Nate snags another bottle of champagne.

“Where are you two going?” Comph shouts loudly from across the room, effectively drawing the attention of the entire team.

“To celebrate,” Nate answers, lifting the bottle.

“But we’re celebrating here.”

With a wicked grin, Nate slides a warm hand beneath Cale’s shirt. “Private celebration, buddy. Just between husbands.”

“Aren’t your families staying at your place?” Kauter asks, looking genuinely concerned and a touch scandalized.

“Not tonight,” Nate says brusquely, then drags Cale out of the locker room and to their car, barely willing to let go of him for the drive.

“This probably isn’t good for the seats,” Cale says after a moment, free hand running mindlessly over his sticky wet clothes.

“Probably not,” Nate agrees. “We can take care of it later though.”

That’s a good answer, Cale thinks. Later. They can take care of that later. After they get home and after Nate does everything single thing he had promised Cale he would do.

Shit, he wants that. So fucking much, it hurts.

No, literally. He thinks his dick might be chafing after a couple hours at half-mast with no relief.

Once they pull into the driveway, they stumble out of the car and up the steps, hands pushing at clothes ineffectually as Nate tries to unlock the door.

“Fuck,” he growls, and Cale has to pull back and wrap a steadying hand over his before the key slides in.

They tumble through the doorway and nearly fall to the floor, Nate only just catching them with a hand on the long table in the entry.

“Shit, why are you even wearing clothes?” he whines with a frustrated tug at Cale’s wet shirt.

Cale bats his hands away and drags the material over his head, letting it drop to the floor with a wet smack. “I don’t think you’d like me walking around naked.”

“I totally would,” Nate retorts and shoves a hand down the front of his shorts, giving him a few practiced strokes that have Cale seeing stars.

“You would not,” he gasps, trying to work Nate’s shirt off.

Nate grunts in disapproval. Of the words or the attempted shirt-removal, Cale isn’t sure, but he knows both are ridiculous anyways.

“Could you please let go for two seconds?” he asks, far calmer than he feels. “You’re not the only one who wants to get his husband naked.”

With a pout, Nate relents, pulling back just enough for Cale to pull his shirt off.

“Also,” Cale continues when Nate has one hand around him again and the other working the material of his shorts down his thighs, “you would absolutely not be okay with me running around naked all the time. You already get pissed when the guys make comments in the locker room because they know it winds you up. I can’t imagine what you would do if I went everywhere naked.”

Groaning, Nate drops to his knees, and Cale’s breath whooshes out of him.

“Maybe not everywhere,” Nate concedes, tugging Cale’s shorts off and making quick work of his shoes while he’s down there. “But at home. You should not be allowed to wear clothes at home. They just get in the way.”

Cale would really appreciate it if Nate got his mouth on him or even just his hand again, but he seems determined to keep his promise about eating Cale out because he stands up, pulls his own shorts and shoes off with an almost clinical precision that surprises Cale with how much he’s had to drink, and tugs at Cale’s wrist until he follows him to their bedroom.

“I can’t walk around the house naked,” Cale says, eyes fixed on Nate’s bare ass. “Our families visit too often, and there are always guys coming over without warning.” Nate turns just enough to frown at him like those aren’t good enough excuses for why Cale shouldn’t be walking around buck naked all the time. “Plus, that’s a terrible habit to get into with the kids we’re going to have someday. We’re supposed to teach them to wear clothes, not take them off whenever they feel like it.”

They step into their room, and Nate nudges him toward the bed with an insistent hand, pushing him back until his knees buckle against the edge. He crawls over Cale, trailing kisses up his chest.

“God, I can’t wait to have kids with you,” he says, and Cale doesn’t think that should be arousing.

His body disagrees.

“Is that dirty talk for you now?” he teases, arching his back when Nate sets his teeth against the fragile skin beneath his jaw. “What happened to everything you were telling me after the game, hmm? I thought you were going to rim me until I cried, not talk about kids.”

“First of all,” Nate says, nipping at his jaw, “you’re the one who brought up kids. Second, I am going to do every single thing I said I would until you’re begging me to stop because you can’t handle anymore.” Cale shivers beneath him. “And third, seeing you with kids is hot as fuck. I wanted to jump you every time we hung out with Matt’s kids; I can’t even imagine what I’ll want to do to you when it’s our kids.”

Cale should say something witty in return, should play this off like it’s not a big deal, but he can’t. Lying beneath Nate as he tells him how great their kids will be and what a great dad Cale will be, he can feel tears building in his eyes.

This sucks.

This fucking sucks.

Cale still doesn’t understand what the hell is going on, why he keeps having elaborate dreams about a life with one of his teammates, but in this moment, he hates it. More than he ever has before because none of it is real.

He is going to wake up to an empty bed in an empty room, thousands of kilometers away from the person his subconscious has decided would be a good husband. He is going to work out, hang out with his family, and maybe—just maybe—see a message from Nate in the group text. Another picture of his dog or a snippy reply to someone’s chirping.

That’s it.

That’s all there will be.

He’s not married to Nate. He barely even knows him. The person braced over Cale is a figment of his imagination, a fantasy he has created for some unknown but awful reason.

“Hey,” Nate says, drawing Cale out of his thoughts. He looks concerned, worried even. “Are you okay?”

He’s not. He’s really not.

“No,” he murmurs, and Nate’s frown deepens.

“What is it?” he asks, lifting a hand to cradle Cale’s cheek tenderly. “Did I say something wrong? I’m sorry. I just…I’m kind of drunk and really in love with you, and even though it freaks me out a little to think about being a parent, I still want to do it with you because I don’t think it would be as bad if I knew I had you doing it with me.”

He looks terribly nervous, biting at his lip as he watches Cale with wide eyes.

Fuck.

FUCK.

This isn’t real, and it probably never will be, but Cale doesn’t give a shit. This Nate loves him, wants a family with him, and if that’s all Cale will ever get, he’s going to take it and hold on for as long as he can.

Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all, right?

Right.

He covers Nate’s hand with his own and pulls it over to press a kiss to his palm. “I want it, too,” he whispers and feels his heart break.

Nate smiles, open and honest, perfect.

“Good,” he says and dips down for a real kiss.

\----

Cale wakes up alone and aching, cursing everything as he shoves a hand down his shorts and jerks himself off, dry and painful.

Fuck. FUCK.

Just when he decides to go for it, to throw caution to the wind and test the waters with Nate, his body decides to wake up. Fuck him, and fuck Nate, and fuck these stupid dreams that feel too damn real.

When he comes, he can still feel the delicious scrape of Nate’s teeth over his jaw, and he swears he can hear him whisper, “I love you.”

It fucking sucks.

He throws himself out of bed and stomps over to the bathroom, turning the water just above freezing and stepping under the unforgiving spray. It’s cold as hell against his sleep-warm skin, and he scrubs a vicious hand against his stomach, letting the reminder wash away.

\----

A part him wants another dream desperately, wants to wake up in bed with Nate and roll on top of him, press him down into their mattress and give him that blow job he promised in the first dream.

Another part of him wonders if waking up was a sign that he shouldn’t try anything with Nate. Maybe the universe is telling him that it’s a bad idea.

He isn’t sure which side to listen to.

\----

When he opens his eyes, he is sweaty, tired, and short of breath.

“That was insane,” Nate murmurs beside him, and Cale turns to look at him, taking in the red cheeks and dopey smile.

Shit, he missed it again. God fucking damn it, maybe the universe doesn’t actually want this and is just torturing him with dreams of things he now wants but cannot have.

“Good insane or bad insane?” he asks.

Nate gives him a derisive look. “Good, obviously. I wouldn’t have asked you to keep going if I didn’t like it.”

Cale flushes from embarrassment or arousal; he’s not sure which. “Still feel like I should ask,” he mumbles, and Nate’s face softens.

He rolls onto his side, props himself up on an elbow, and rests a hand on Cale’s chest. “It was great. A little weird at the beginning but really fucking good by the end, okay? Like, I kind of want to do it the same way next time, but I also want to top because I think I’d really enjoy fingering you.”

A shudder rattles through Cale. “I think I’d like that, too.”

With a smug grin, Nate trails a hand down Cale’s stomach. “Good,” he says.

Cale knows he just came, even though he wasn’t actually here to experience it, but his body doesn’t seem to care because his legs sprawl enough for Nate to rub his thumb over the soft skin of his inner thigh, and fuck, he didn’t know he was that sensitive there.

“Should throw the condom away,” he mumbles as Nate’s fingers brush, feather light and teasing, over his skin.

Nate groans but pulls his hand away and pats at Cale’s hip. “Hurry up then.”

Cale rolls out of bed and stumbles toward the bathroom, grateful that he’s been in this house too many damn times and knows his way around. He tosses the condom in the trash and turns the faucet on to wash his hands. When he looks in the mirror, he jumps.

Holy fuck.

Leaning forward, he stares at himself in shock. That’s him, really him. Not ten years from now, not twenty. But the same person he saw in the mirror last night, yesterday morning, every day for the past week.

It’s strange.

He looks like himself, and he’s about to crawl back into bed with Nate, who—now that he thinks about it—looks a hell of lot like he did the last time Cale saw him.

Well, fuck.

In the last dream, Cale was fresh off a Cup win and had champagne flowing through him, dulling the voice at the back of his head telling him not to sleep with one of his teammates, even in a dream. They had been older too, enough that Cale could separate his Nate from the real Nate.

Now though…

Now though he doesn’t actually give a fuck, he decides. He’s had months of Nate in his dreams and in his bed, warm and tempting, pressing kisses to his hair or sucking at the skin beneath his jaw, and he’s resisted.

And for what?

That hasn’t changed anything. He still dreams of Nate, still feels the ring around his finger when he wakes up, still opens his phone and is shocked each time the background isn’t a picture of him and Nate.

Resisting hasn’t changed shit, so there’s no point resisting anymore.

Hell, maybe if he lets Nate fuck him, he can stop having these dreams (visions, whatever).

Decided, he turns the faucet off and walks into the bedroom.

\----

He wakes up in Calgary.

Fucking bullshit dreams.

What the hell is even the point of them?

\----

A few days later, he goes out with friends and tries to pick up but fails abysmally, flinching back each time a girl tries to lay a hand on his arm or shoulder. Eventually, he casts a curious glance at some of the guys and feels nauseous.

He wants to go home.

He wants to crawl into bed and straight into Nate’s arm.

He excuses himself and gets a cab.

\----

A steady beeping draws him from sleep, and he feels painfully stiff, neck and back protesting when he tries to sit up. He should not have slept in the chair, he thinks, should have moved a couple of feet to the left and put the cot to good use.

He would have been farther away though, too far from where Nate lies on the sterile hospital bed, chest moving slowly up and down as the monitor signals each beat of his heart. He looks fragile, more than he ever has before, and Cale’s throat feels tight, tight, tight.

He reaches a wrinkled hand out and lays it over Nate’s, wrapping around the cool fingers and squeezing gently.

Nate turns to look at him, eyes still the same striking blue, and smiles.

Cale does his best to return it.

“You’re awake,” Nate says softly, turning his hand over to intertwine their fingers. “You should have slept on the cot.”

Shrugging, Cale turns Nate’s hand in his and tries not to panic too much when he sees the empty ring finger, wondering if he’s finally had a dream that isn’t consistent with the others.

“You should put it back on,” Nate tells him when Cale spends too long staring at the strip of skin, paler than the rest of his finger.

“You know you’re not supposed to have anything that could constrict blood flow,” Cale replies, eyes still glued to the terrible emptiness.

Nate sighs. “I don’t think that will matter soon,” he says softly, and the words are like a knife to Cale’s chest, slicing through muscle and bone, cutting him to the quick.

“Don’t say that,” he begs, pulling Nate’s hand closer. “Don’t you dare say that. The doctors—”

“The doctors can’t help me.” Cale closes his eyes to hold in the tears. God, how are there any left to cry? “And that’s okay. Sweetheart, that’s okay.”

Frowning, Cale shakes his head. “You can’t leave us.” The words catch in his throat, painfully honest. “You can’t leave me.”

Nate exhales, heavy and tired, and he lifts their hands to press a kiss to Cale’s fingers. “You’ll be okay without me,” and Cale is already shaking his head before he finishes. He won’t be; he really won’t be. “You’ll have Abby and Noah, Julia and Sarah and Kevin and—”

“But I won’t have you,” Cale interrupts because that’s what matters most. Yes, he’ll have his kids and grandkids and great-grandkids, but none of them can fill the space Nate takes up his life. All of them together aren’t enough to fill the void he will leave.

Nate smiles, bittersweet. “No, you won’t, but I’ll be there on the other side to meet you when you finally join me.”

“You always have to be first, don’t you?” Cale jokes through the tears, and Nate rolls his eyes fondly.

“Not always first,” he says, squeezing Cale’s hand. “We wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t come to me that first night.”

“Yes, we would,” Cale says, confidently, brushing the words aside. “No matter what, we would have figured this out. It just might have taken a bit longer.”

“Thank god we figured it out early,” Nate says with a mischievous grin. “Think of all the time we would have lost if you hadn’t shown up at my door and forced me to talk about things. So much sex we would have missed out on in our prime.”

Cale laughs wetly. “Ever the romantic.”

“I’ll show you romantic,” Nate grumbles, and Cale’s heart feels like a fifty-pound weight in his chest, pinning him down and holding him in place.

He looks at Nate, traces the familiar features softened by age, and aches.

“I don’t think I’m going to last too long without you,” he whispers, clinging to Nate’s hand like he can keep him here longer if he just hangs on tight enough, like he can stop the inevitable if he wishes hard enough.

Nate’s eyes dim, and he looks down at his lap, follows the lines of the hospital blanket with his free hand. “I wish that weren’t true,” he murmurs. “You have some years left. You could go live with Noah and Amber; they’d be happy to have you.”

“Years to do what?” Cale asks forcefully, and his grip is fierce. “Wake up alone? Watch our family grow without you? Count the days until I die, too?” He laughs, mirthlessly, and Nate’s lips twist. “I can’t do that. I don’t want that. I’ve spent almost all of my life with you. Won the Cup with you, raised a family with you, done everything important with you. I can’t even imagine eating breakfast without you. How the fuck am I supposed to live  _years_ without you?”

There are tears in Nate’s eyes, slipping silently down the weathered lines of his face, and Cale deflates, wrung out and exhausted.

“I can’t do that, Nate.” His voice breaks, shatters like glass. “Please, don’t ask me to. I can’t.”

“Okay.” It’s barely more than a whisper. “Okay.”

\----

Cale wakes up crying, heaving sobs forcing their way up and out, and he trembles with it.

From the bed, he can see his puck on the nightstand and the basket of clothes still waiting for him to put away, but that doesn’t matter. Maybe the dream wasn’t real, but the pain is, and it settles in his chest like a rock, heavy and immovable.

He can still feel Nate’s time-worn hand in his, and he aches at the thought of his husband on his deathbed, minutes or hours away from the end, and knows with an unshakable and frightening certainty that the Cale of that dream won’t live long without Nate in his life.

He rolls over, buries his head in a pillow, and cries until there is nothing left.

\----

The dream haunts him, and he dreads going to sleep each night, afraid he’ll wake up in that same hospital or, worse, wake up outside of it without Nate.

He doesn’t sleep well, and by the time he arrives in the Denver airport, he has dark circles under his eyes.

“You look like you haven’t slept in a week,” Matt says when he climbs into his car, bags stuffed haphazardly in the back. “You nervous? Because you really shouldn’t be.”

Cale shakes his head and tries to summon up a smile. “Just haven’t slept well the last few days.”

Matt gives him a look like he doesn’t actually believe it, but he drops the subject, instead asking Cale about his summer and family and telling stories about the kids’ escapades in return.

\----

Tyson hosts a barbeque at his house a few days later, and Cale spends a good hour panicking beforehand because he will see Nate for the first since the hellish dreams started and he doesn’t know how to act.

He knows what Nate looks like when he wipes applesauce off their son’s face or when he first wakes up in the morning, sleepy and warm. He knows what Nate sounds like when Abby tells him a joke she learned at school, laughter loud and unrestrained. He knows what Nate smells like after sex, a heady mixture of sweat and come that gets Cale hot just thinking about it. He knows what it feels like to love Nate in every sense of the word and be loved in return.

But this isn’t his Nate.

This is the real Nate, the only one that really matters, and he needs to treat him like any other teammate.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Matt says on the drive over to Tyson’s, and Cale squirms in his seat, tugging at the collar of his shirt when he feels like he can’t breathe properly.

“Just tired.”

Matt sighs. “Look, you don’t have to share anything with me that you don’t want to, but I’m a little worried about you. You’re not sleeping well, I know that. The circles under your eyes have only gotten darker since you’ve been here, and I can hear you up at crazy hours of the night when the only people still awake are little kids and their tired parents.”

Cale clenches his hands into fists and releases each finger slowly.

“If this is about hockey, let me tell you that you have absolutely nothing to worry about. You were incredible in the playoffs last year. You already have a roster spot, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re in the top pairing. Please, don’t be nervous about hockey.” He pauses. “But if this is about something else, if there’s family stuff or relationship stuff that you have going on—”

“No,” Cale interrupts as calmly as he can. “There’s no family stuff, and definitely no relationship stuff. I just haven’t been sleeping well.”

Humming, Matt glances at him before looking back at the road. “Okay,” he concedes. “Just know that you shouldn’t worry about hockey and that you can talk to me or Courtney if you need anything.”

Cale nods, “Thanks, I will,” and he’s infinitely grateful when they pull up in front of Tyson’s house and the conversation ends.

As they walk inside, he thinks the house and neighborhood look strangely familiar, but he can’t figure out why.

“Matty, Cale!” Tyson shouts when they walk through the door, coming to throw an arm around both their shoulders. “Welcome to the party palace my dudes! You ready to kick ass this season?”

“Always ready, Brutes,” Matt responds, and Cale nods in agreement.

“Sick, we’ve got a table for the food out back and beer for those who are old enough to partake,” he says with a wry grin aimed at Cale. “But if you want to sneak a couple, I won’t say anything.”

Cale smiles but knows he won’t take one, too worried that he’ll have one too many and end up saying something truly stupid in front of Nate and the team.

“Backyard is this way,” Tyson directs, and Cale takes a fortifying breath as they step out onto the back patio.

Most of the guys are already there, lounging on deck chairs or around tables, drinks in hand and plates in front of them. Some wave or nod in greeting, and Cale forces himself not to scan the faces for Nate. He fails of course, and when he sees Nate, sprawled in a chair beside Gabe and EJ, his breath catches in his chest.

“Grab some plates, and serve yourselves,” Tyson tells them with a firm pat to Cale’s back, dragging his attention away from Nate. “Any empty chairs are free game.”

Matt thanks him, and they pile their plates with hamburgers, pasta salad, and regular salad to give the meal some redeeming value, then turn to find seats. They end up beside Colin and Colesy, and Cale lets himself be pulled into conversation about the Blues chances at a repeat and what sauces go best on a burger.

At one point, he glances down the table and finds Nate staring at him, unblinking and hard, eyes fiercely intent. A chill runs through him, and his mouth goes painfully dry. With slightly trembling fingers, he grabs his cup and takes a long drink. When he sets the cup down, Nate is still staring.

“Who do you think would win, Cale?” Colin asks, and Cale whips his head around to look at him, feeling caught-out and off-center.

“Win what?”

“In a fight,” Colesy supplies helpfully. “A squid or an octopus, who do you think would win?”

“Uh, a squid,” he replies, though it comes out unsure, sounding more like a question than an answer. Colin throws a fist in the air, and Colesy groans.

When Cale looks back down the table, Nate has turned back to Tyson, who looks upset or frustrated about something as he waves his hands insistently, speaking to Nate in low tones.

Cale doesn’t catch him looking again, and he decides he probably read into it too much. Nate was probably just zoning out or looking at someone near Cale.

He really needs to get this whole thing under control, needs to get some sleep and get his head on straight.

\----

“You staying?” Matt asks when Bedsy signals the end of practice a few weeks later.

Cale nods, shuffling a puck around the ice. “I’ll probably stay another hour. There’s some stuff I want to work on.”

Matt doesn’t look particularly happy with that answer. “Don’t stay too long, okay? You don’t need to wear yourself out before the game tomorrow.”

“I won’t,” Cale says, even though that is very much his goal right now. If he works himself into the ground, maybe he can fall asleep and stay asleep one of these nights. It hasn’t worked yet, but he’s optimistic.

“Sleep is just as important as training,” Matt tells him before heading towards the locker room.

With a sigh, Cale turns back to the open ice, pushing the puck in front of him as he carves a path to the opposite goal. Before he reaches the red line, a puck rockets past him and smashes into the boards.

He whirls around to see Nate skating towards him, and his heart pounds in his chest, wondering what Nate wants and how quickly he can get away without being too obvious.

“I was going to do some stickhandling stuff,” Nate says, coming to a stop beside Cale, looking uncharacteristically self-conscious. “If you’re staying too, we could practice together.”

Cale should say no. He should go put some time in on the bike or the treadmill. He should not stay on this ice with Nate, alone.

“Sure,” he says and wants to pull the words back immediately, but Nate smiles at him, hesitant but genuine, and Cale aches with it.

They work through a series of drills Nate suggests, making their way up and down the ice as they fight for possession, and Cale loses himself in it. He could do this all day, he thinks, could spend hours on the ice with Nate, going back and forth, never giving an inch that isn’t earned.

When Nate calls for a water break, Cale isn’t sure how long it’s been, but he doesn’t hear anything from the tunnel and thinks their teammates have probably all headed home. He takes the bottle Nate holds out to him and tries not to flush when their fingers brush.

He’s managed to play it cool so far. He’s not going to let a water bottle and some fingers fuck it up.

“We’ll have ours up there soon,” Nate says after a few moments’ silence, and Cale turns, brow furrowed to see him looking up toward the rafters, where the banners hang, where their banners hung in Cale’s dreams.

His throat feels tight and painful. “Yeah,” he mutters. “Soon.”

Nate turns to him suddenly, focused and intense, and Cale’s mouth goes dry despite the water. “We will,” Nate says confidently, looking like he needs Cale to believe him, needs Cale to know it’s true. “We’ll win together, you and me. The team,” he adds as an afterthought.

The words hurt in a way they shouldn’t, and Cale desperately needs to get away from Nate and his familiar eyes and determined face. “Yeah,” he breathes.

Nate seems closer than he was a minute ago, and he opens his mouth to say something.

“I have to go,” Cale blurts, shoving the water bottle back at Nate. “I promised Matt I’d help with something at the house.” Nate’s mouth clicks shut, and he takes a deliberate step back, face going blank. It fucking  _hurts._ “Sorry. I’m sorry. I…sorry.” He gives an aborted wave. “See you tomorrow. Bye, sorry.”

He stumbles down the tunnel and into the locker room, stripping his gear off as quickly as possible and tossing it haphazardly into his locker. He’s in and out of the shower in two minutes. Nate hasn’t come off the ice yet.

On the drive home, he berates himself. He couldn’t even manage a simple conversation with Nate, couldn’t even listen to him talk about winning the Cup without being reminded of a future that never was. He feels young, naïve, and overly emotional about things that never really happened.

\----

When he crawls into bed that night, he can’t seem to find a comfortable position, rolling from side to side, punching the pillows into different shapes, and rearranging the blankets to no avail.

He finally passes out from exhaustion around three, and it only gets worse from there.

\----

“You sleep at all?” Sammy asks over breakfast one morning, eyeing him suspiciously as he shovels eggs into his mouth.

“Yes,” is Cale’s curt reply.

“You sure? I heard you move a lot, keep rolling over.”

“Shit, sorry.” Cale takes another swig of bitter coffee, gagging at the taste. He hates it, has never made a habit of drinking it, but he’s desperate to stay awake and alert at this point. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“You did not wake me up,” Sammy says with a dismissive wave. “I slept fine, but I know you were still awake when I fell asleep and you were awake when I wake up this morning. Usually, I would not worry, but this is not the first time it happens.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Sammy intones firmly. “You still play very good, but you’re tired. It’s the beginning of the season, you should not be so tired already.”

Cale thinks he should learn how to fake it better to at least give Sammy the illusion that he sleeps more than he does. It probably won’t make a difference for him; he’s tried every meditation, relaxation, and mindfulness activity the Internet has to offer, and none of it has made a difference.

He gets five or six hours a night and sneaks in naps when he can.

The only boon in all of this is that the dreams haven’t continued in Denver. He doesn’t know if it’s the change of location, the lack of sleep, or the stress of trying to act normal around Nate and the team, but he counts his blessings because he doesn’t think he could stay chill after another dream of Nate and their family.

“I’m fine.”

Sammy gives a derisive, judgmental look. “You’re not fine.”

“I’m playing fine,” Cale says because that’s all that matters at the end of the day. As long as he has the energy to get it done on the ice he doesn’t really care about anything else.

Sammy’s lips purse. “Hockey is not all that matters.”

“But it matters most.”

Sammy clearly doesn’t like that answer, so Cale bows his head and sets in on his breakfast, barely tasting the food as it goes down.

\----

“You could talk to trainers or doctors,” Sammy suggests at dinner that night. “Maybe they could give you something to help you sleep.”

Cale is so tired, so fucking tired. “I don’t need anything to help me sleep.”

“You need. It’s beginning of November, and you already look like you need a break.”

“Sam, seriously, I’m—”

“Holy shit,” EJ exclaims across from them, and Cale welcomes the distraction, “this is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Nate, you have to try this.” He shoves a forkful of food in Nate’s face, and Nate rears back to avoid getting stabbed in the cheek. “Tyson, Tys, dude, this is amazing. It’s like I’m in Mexico again.”

“I told you it would be good,” Tyson says smugly, and EJ presses the fork forward until Nate reluctantly opens his mouth for the overflowing utensil.

“What do you think?”

Nate gives him a thumbs up, and EJ turns gleefully to look at them. “Sammy, Cale, you have to try this. It’s amazing.”

“I’m not eating after Nate,” Sammy grimaces, and Nate rolls his eyes, unable to say anything through a full mouth.

“Give me your fork then,” EJ says and grabs the utensil before Sammy can do anything, loading it up with manna from heaven before returning the fork and holding his hand out towards Cale.

Cale turns to Sammy and waits until he gives a nod of approval before handing his fork over to an eager EJ.

“You’re not going to like it,” Nate says just as he’s opening his mouth, and Cale pauses, fork in the air, lips parted as he stares at Nate.

It’s the most he’s said to Cale in weeks.

They talk on the ice and in the locker room of course, running through set plays or brainstorming for the PK, but beyond that…

Well, Cale hasn’t expressly avoided Nate, but he hasn’t exactly sought him out either. After the failed post-practice workout, Nate had approached him a couple of times, making friendly conversation about his family or how Cale is settling in, but after a few minutes, he would inevitably do or say something that reminded Cale of the dreams, and Cale would excuse himself each time, a painful mixture of shame and loss churning in his gut. Eventually, Nate had stopped seeking him out.

He is talking to him now though, and his eyes are wide and shocked like he hadn’t meant to say anything.

“What?”

Nate swallows, flushing under the attention the boys are giving him, and stays silent. He looks a bit sick.

“It’s delicious, Nate,” EJ says like he’s personally offended by Nate’s comment. “Why would he not like it?”

Nate shrugs and mumbles something, unintelligible. Cale’s hand is still frozen.

“What was that?” EJ asks and pokes at Nate’s side. “What did you say, Nathan?” Cale wouldn’t be surprised if his finger leaves a bruise in Nate’s ribs.

“I said he won’t like it because it has cilantro,” Nate says, slapping EJ’s hand away with a pissed-off expression. Cale looks at the forkful of diced vegetables and wrinkles his nose when he notices the chopped green leaves.

“What’s wrong with cilantro?” Tyson asks curiously, and Cale reaches across the table and dumps the food back onto EJ’s plate with a grimace.

Nate shrugs, mumbles again, and turns pointedly toward Mikko, striking up a conversation about the new putter he got over the summer.

“What’s wrong with cilantro?” Tyson repeats, looking at Cale like his food preferences have personally wounded him.

“I don’t like the taste,” Cale tells him, trying not to stare at Nate too obviously. “It’s like soap.”

EJ and Tyson reel back, hands over their hearts, and jump into a spontaneous lecture about why cilantro is the greatest herb in existence. Their absurd descriptions of its beautiful, verdant leaves and unique, perfect flavor distract Cale for the rest of the evening.

\----

He doesn’t think about it again until the clock is showing 1:24AM, and by then, he doesn’t trust anything his brain comes up with, too fried from a rough game and a chronic lack of sleep to have any worthwhile explanation for why Nate would know about Cale’s dislike for cilantro.

He falls asleep and dreams of quiet laughter and a callused hand in his.

He wakes up shaking.

\----

“Let me think,” Tyson shouts over everyone on the plane a couple weeks later, looking at JT with narrowed eyes. “What,” he begins with a vicious smirk, “is the dirtiest thing you’ve ever done in bed?”

JT goes red immediately, and everyone hollers in excitement. “I’m passing on that one,” he says quickly and reaches for the open bottle of scotch Grubi had produced from god knows where.

There are groans all around as he takes a shot.

Tyson pouts. “You’re so boring.”

JT shrugs, still red in the face.

“Fine, Nate,” Tyson says, turning to grin maniacally at his friend. Cale suddenly wishes he hadn’t given into the peer pressure and had just gone to sit with the older guys in the front. The chirping he’d get would be better than listening to Nate talk about his sex life.  “What…would you name your kids? First girl, first boy.”

Cale stares at Tyson in disbelief.

“What!” JT shouts. “You ask me about sex stuff, and Nate just has to pick baby names? How is that fair?”

“Nate doesn’t have a sex life to talk about,” Tyson explains easily, and Nate shoves at him forcefully, jaw tight and cheeks red. He doesn’t deny it though. He doesn’t fucking deny it, and Cale thinks it would have been easier to listen to some dirty story than know Nate isn’t sleeping with anyone, maybe hasn’t for a while. Cale didn’t need to know that.

“Not fair,” JT grouses, settling into his seat when Tyson 2.0 lays a gentle hand on his arm, and Tyson grins beatifically.

“Let’s hear them, Nate,” he says, poking at his friend. “If you say Sidney, I’m going to mock you for the rest of your life.”

“Fuck off!” Nate groans. “I would never name one of my kids Sidney.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Positive?”

Nate rolls his eyes. “Yes, I’m fucking positive. If I had girl, I’d name her Abigail and call her Abby for short.” Cale’s chest seizes. “If I had a boy, I’d name him Noah.”

What the fuck kind of hell is Cale living in?

Abby and Noah. Noah and Abby. The names ring in his ears, and Cale can’t breathe. He can’t fucking breathe. Not with all the guys around him, not with Nate casually saying the names of their children, not with everyone nodding in approval at the choices and moving onto the next person.

He stumbles to his feet and offers a weak apology to Sammy when he knocks into his knees.

“Where are you going?” Kerf asks.

“I think I’m done for the night,” he says and thanks whatever gods may be that his voice comes out reasonably steady and calm.

“You haven’t even gone yet!” Josty hollers. “You can’t leave.”

Nate is watching him with a furrowed brow and a frown, and Cale feels trapped, hemmed in and incapable of escape. He shrugs helplessly at Josty and strides away, booking it toward the front of the plane and collapsing into the first open seat he finds.

Abby and Noah. Nate wants to name his kids Abby and Noah, and he probably will. He and his future wife will have beautiful, perfect babies, and they’ll name them Abby and Noah, and Cale will just have to smile and congratulate them, pretending like he’s okay watching Nate build a family— _their_ family—without him.

Reclining in his seat, he tosses an arm over his eyes and takes slow, deep breaths, grateful for the dim lights and the quiet hum of the plane as he trembles, tears soaking his sleeve.

\----

He sleeps like shit when they get to Vancouver and when they return to Denver, wishing for a dream that’ll make the world right again, where Abby and Noah are his, where Nate is his.

He wakes up to the ceiling of his room, the laughter of Matt’s kids downstairs, and the certainty that he won’t ever have another dream again. At least, not the dreams he wants.

\----

“Courtney and I think you should talk to one of the team doctors,” Matt tells him gently as they drive to Nate’s house for a team-only dinner. They’ve been less consistent than they’d like to start the season, and after a bullshit loss the night before, Nate had declared that everyone would be coming to his house for pizza and beer.

“About what?” Cale asks, clutching the six-pack Matt had picked up closer to his chest like he can protect himself from the conversation if he holds it tightly enough.

Matt gives him a flat look. “Don’t play dumb. You’re a smart kid. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t need to talk to the doctors,” Cale says tiredly, letting his head tip back. “It’s not like there’s anything they can do for me. Medication would fuck with my game too much, and I’ve already tried a million different meditation, yoga, and relaxation videos to last me a lifetime. They wouldn’t have anything new to offer.”

Eyes on the road, Matt makes a considering noise. “Maybe not, but you haven’t had any success on your own.”

Cale grinds his teeth and shrugs. “Look,” he sighs, “I know it’s a problem, and I’m working on it, okay? I’m doing everything I can. The doctors can’t do anything but give me more videos or recordings to help me relax or de-stress, and I have enough of those already.”

“Cale,” Matt says firmly, “you need to talk to them. You can’t keep pushing through this, hoping it will magically go away. I know you’re an adult and can make your own choices, but you’re my teammate and my friend, and I can’t let you keep going like this. You’re going to end up hurting yourself or someone else because you’re too tired to skate in a straight line or stay in your lane on the road, and I can’t let that happen. Talk to the doctors. I don’t care if they give you the same shit you’ve found on your own; they need to know.”

Cale looks out the window, eyes unseeing as the houses pass by.

“Please, Cale. You need to.”

Eventually, he nods, and Matt mirrors the gesture with a grateful smile.

“Thank you.”

The rest of the drive is silent, and Cale feels a strange mixture of relief and fear churning in his stomach as he considers how the doctors might react, what they’d be able (or not able) to do.

He’s about to climb out of the car when Matt lays a hand on his forearm. “We care about you, Cale,” he says. “We want you to be happy and healthy.”

“I know.”

Matt looks at him, searching and intent, then nods, throwing his door open and sliding out of the car. Cale does the same and promptly trips over his own feet.

Holy fucking shit. Holy—what the fucking hell is going on?

He looks up at Nate’s house, looks up at  _their_  house, and decides he has officially lost it. That’s it. He’s gone crazy from lack of sleep and too much stress and is now having vivid hallucinations.

He should see a psychiatrist; the team doctors can’t do shit for this fucked-up mess.

Matt circles the car and gives him a worried look. “You okay?”

“This is Nate’s house?” he asks, breathless and disbelieving.

“Yeah.” He drags the word out as he eyes Cale with concern.

“Has he always lived here?”

“Not always, obviously, but yeah. He’s been here a few years now.”

What the goddamn hell is going on here? This is not okay. This is not normal.

Wide-eyed, Cale follows Matt up the front steps, trying to wrap his mind around what he is seeing.

This is his house.

This is  _their_ house.

He has been here before.

When they step through the doorway, it’s like déjà-vu but worse. He looks at the familiar tile and the table in the entryway, the plush carpet of the living room and the armchairs so obviously chosen by a designer.

“Hey,” Nate calls, and Cale can’t handle this.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” he says and spins toward the side hallway, ignoring whatever Nate says next as he treads the familiar path.

He only just manages not to slam the door and abruptly falls to his knees, heaving into the toilet, losing his lunch and probably some of his breakfast in violent, seizing bursts. His throat burns, and his eyes water. His fingers curl painfully tight around the toilet seat as shivers wrack through him.

By the time he has control of himself, there’s nothing left but bile, clear and burning.

Feeling cracked-open and raw, he flushes the toilet and drags himself to his feet, turning the faucet on and splashing cold water across his face. He washes his mouth, his face, his hands, then dries them slowly.

This is his house.

This is his fucking house.

He’s been here before, has been in this bathroom before.

How the hell is this possible? He has never really been here outside of the damn dreams. How can he know what Nate’s house looks like? What the cool tile feels like under his feet? What kind of towel Nate always sticks in the guest bathroom because it’s the fluffiest they have?

Nothing about this is okay.

“Cale?” someone asks, just outside the door, and he freezes. “Are you okay?”

That’s Nate, standing outside of their bathroom asking if Cale is okay.

He lets out an incredulous laugh.

Maybe this is a dream, and Cale just hasn’t realized it yet.

But no, he went to bed last night in Matt’s house and woke up in the same place this morning with the puck sitting on the nightstand, exactly as he’d left it last night.

This isn’t a dream.

“I’m fine,” he says, voice raw. “I’m fine.”

He doesn’t hear anything in response, only the distant sound of teammates cracking open beer bottles and chatting about the season and their families coming through the solid wood.

With a slow exhale, he hangs the towel back in its place and opens the door. Nate is on the other side, looking almost as bad as Cale feels.

Shit.

“I just need to get some sleep,” he mumbles.

Nate reaches a hand out “I don’t think that—” and Cale flinches on instinct, taking a full step back. The hand hangs in the air between them, fingers extended, and Nate’s face crumples in devastation.

“I should probably go home,” Cale says, feeling two seconds away from falling apart. “I think I might have caught a bug or something.”

With a resigned nod, Nate closes his mouth, lets his hand drop, and steps aside, giving Cale space to pass.

“Sorry,” Cale says. “I—sorry.”

Nate looks like he wants to say something, but he bites his lip instead.

Cale goes to find Matt, who quickly hands his keys over, saying that Courtney can pick him up later or that he can catch a ride with one of the guys. No one gives him a hard time for leaving early, and he wonders how bad he must look if all he gets are pitying stares and wishes to get better quickly.

Nate looks pained as Cale waves goodbye.

\----

By some miracle, he makes it home in one piece, and Courtney just tells him to go upstairs with the promise of food, water, and some Tylenol.

He doesn’t stay awake long enough to eat or drink anything, collapsing on his bed and falling asleep almost immediately, exhausted and overwhelmed, too tired to untie his shoes or take off his jeans.

He dreams of warmth, a breath on his neck, an arm around his waist. There’s someone there, close enough for Cale to hear and feel but not close enough to touch. He can’t reach out, can’t get a hand on him to pull him closer.

When he wakes, it’s dark, and the clock tells him he’s been asleep for six hours. There’s a bottle of Tylenol on the nightstand with a glass of water and a packet of saltines.

Cale rolls over and tosses an arm out, shocked when he only feels cool sheets and an empty bed.

Fuck.

Berating himself for the thoughtless mistake, he turns back around and shakes a couple of pills out, downing them with the glass of water. He eyes the crackers but decides not to eat any when his stomach churns unpleasantly.

With a heavy sigh, he flops back onto the bed and closes his eyes, counting to twenty, then fifty, then a hundred with no success. He slows his breathing and does a full-body scan, tensing and relaxing each muscle in succession. He thinks of a beach, the lull of the waves and the warmth of the sun.

Nothing works.

He wants to go home.

He is tired of waking up alone, tired of being in the wrong house, tired of avoiding Nate for fear that he might say something he shouldn’t. He doesn’t remember the last time he slept through the night, doesn’t remember the last time he felt comfortable in his bed.

He feels like he’s held together by the thinnest of threads, long and fragile, barely keeping him on his feet.

And this isn’t fair.

He didn’t ask for the dreams, didn’t want them. He doesn’t know why he had them and doesn’t know what they mean, but he’s so tired of trying to figure it out, scrolling through endless forums and watching too many videos that leave him more confused than before.

He just wants to be done with this, wants to put it all behind him and move on so he can live his real dream.

He’s already tried everything he can to resolve the sleep problem, but maybe that’s not the right way to approach this. The lack of sleep is really just a symptom of the greater problem, which is the dreams and the life that he didn’t know he wanted until they were forced upon him.

Obviously, he can’t control whether he has dreams or not. They happened in Calgary without his permission, and they haven’t happened in Denver, though he’s wished for them too often. However, maybe he can resolve the issue that led to the dreams in the first place.

Plenty of people online had said that dreams can come because something needs to be changed or fixed, especially if there’s a common theme throughout the dreams.

Cale has a common theme, and avoiding him has just made everything worse, so maybe talking to Nate can bring this all to an end. He doesn’t need to tell him about the dreams, and he definitely doesn’t need to try and make the dreams a reality, but he might be able to remind himself of how things should really be.

Yes. Maybe if he just shows his subconscious that Nate is a teammate and will never be anything more, he can move passed this. He can forget it ever happened and get everything back to normal.

Resolved, he rolls out of bed, snags his keys from the dresser, and quietly makes his way downstairs, praying that Matt and Courtney are both sound asleep. The house is dark and still, and Cale slips out the front door with a sigh of relief, climbing into his car and heading towards Nate’s house.

When he pulls up out front, he can’t help but stare. He knows this house, knows its floors and walls, and that doesn’t make any sense. Before today, he had never been here, never even driven passed. He shouldn’t be able to pick it out of a line-up, let alone walk around inside, certain of where he is going. He shouldn’t know anything about this house, but he does.

It makes no sense.

Shaking his head, he pushes open his door and heads up the front steps. There are no lights on inside, no sign of movement, which makes sense because it’s the middle of the goddamn night. Nate is probably asleep, just like Cale should be.

What is he even doing here?

It’s so late it’s early, and he’s standing in front of his teammate’s door, hoping that he’ll be awake so they can talk. About what? Cale doesn’t know, but this had seemed like a good idea when he was lying in his empty bed at the Calvert’s, and he’s already here, so he might as well give it a shot.

He’ll just knock. If Nate’s asleep, that won’t wake him up, and if he doesn’t answer, Cale will go back to the Calvert’s and try to get a couple more hours of sleep, though he doesn’t expect to be successful.

With a slightly trembling hand, he raps his knuckles against the wood and waits.

He counts to ten and lifts his fist to knock one more time.

The door opens before he is able, and Nate stares out at him, looking awful. He’s pale, more so than usual, and there are dark circles beneath his eyes that look like bruises, deep purple and blue. He’s dressed in the same clothes he had on at the party earlier, though they’re now noticeably rumpled and worn. He looks like Cale feels.

“What—” Nate begins, but the words die in his throat, fading to nothing, and Cale doesn’t know what to say, how to explain why he’s here when the rest of the world is asleep.

“Are you actually here?” Nate finally says, and he sounds terribly exhausted, eyes fixed on Cale’s face like he can’t believe what he is seeing.

“What?” It’s all he can say, shocked by the words and Nate’s appearance.

Nate swallows audibly. “You’re not actually here, are you? I’m asleep. I’m definitely asleep right now,” he says quietly as if speaking only to himself. “This isn’t actually happening.”

Cale’s brow dips low in confusion. “What are you talking about? I’m right here. I don’t—you’re not—”

A wonderful but terrible thought suddenly occurs to him. It smashes his world to pieces as he looks back at Nate, watches him shake his head in disbelief. Cale can feel each beat of his heart, painfully loud as it bats against his ribs.

“I’ve never told you about the cilantro, but you know I don’t like it,” he says, and it comes out like an accusation. “You told me not to eat that food because it had cilantro in it.” Nate doesn’t protest, just stares at Cale in disbelief. “I’ve been to your house before,” Cale goes on, feeling the momentum build, each word ringing with truth. “I—I’ve been to our house before,” he corrects, voice unsteady and weak. “I know where the bathroom is, and I know what pictures are hanging in the living room. I’ve been here so many times, I could probably walk around with my eyes shut and still find my way around.”

His breath is coming fast and shallow now, his chest moving too quickly. “You want—” he stumbles over the words as his throat goes tight. “You want to name your kids Abby and Noah,” he whispers wetly, and Nate reaches a tentative hand out, wrapping careful fingers around Cale’s wrist to pull him inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. “Abby and Noah,” Cale repeats, staring at Nate and feeling like the world makes sense for the first time in months. “Our Abby and Noah.”

Nate lets out a broken, heartrending sound, and he lifts a hand to cradle Cale’s cheek, fingers shaking. “Can I kiss you?” he asks, and Cale could never turn him away.

He nods, already leaning in, and gasps at the first press of their lips.

Nate’s hand is still around his wrist, and his grip tightens when Cale opens his mouth and lets Nate’s tongue slide against his, wet and hot and perfect. He presses into it, steps forward until they’re chest to chest, and lets himself melt against Nate.

Fucking hell, this is better than the dreams.

Cale loops an arm around Nate’s waist and drags him closer, groaning when he can feel Nate press hard and insistent against him. Nate eats the sound up, nipping at Cale’s lips and soothing the sting with his tongue. He drops Cale’s wrist and slides a warm hand under the back of his shirt, fingers teasing over the skin.

Cale pulls back and stares at him, taking in the hot flush of his cheeks and the tempting wetness of his mouth.

“Shit,” he murmurs, and Nate surges forward again, pushing Cale back until he’s trapped between the cool wood of the door and the burning press of Nate’s body, sucking a kiss into the skin beneath Cale’s jaw, right where he’s most sensitive.

“Why are you wearing clothes?” Nate grumbles, fumbling with the hem of Cale’s shirt as he tries to tug it over his head without breaking the kiss.

Cale pulls back and drags the material over his head, tossing it to the floor before grabbing at Nate’s. “Me? Why the hell are you wearing clothes? I had to drive here. I couldn’t do that naked.” He bites at Nate’s jaw, satisfied at the hitched breath and stuttering hips that earns him. “This is your house. You should not be wearing pants.”

Nate rips his own shirt off and throws it aside. “This is  _our_  house,” he answers fiercely and tugs Cale forward by the hips, walking them back further into the house.

Cale moans at the words and slides a hand into Nate’s hair, dragging him into an almost violent kiss, teeth clacking as they try to get closer than might be humanly possible. They stumble into the family room and go tumbling over the arm of the couch.

“Fuck,” Nate hisses when Cale’s thigh slides between his legs. “Fuck, I’ve missed you.”

The words bring Cale up short, and he pulls away from the next kiss, getting his hands and knees under him so he can look down at Nate. “We should talk about this,” he says, even though he would much rather continue what they were doing before.

“Or we could keep doing this and worry about talking later,” Nate replies, rolling his hips up to emphasize exactly what they could be doing right now.

Cale wants to fall back into him, get the rest of their clothes off, and finally have what he never could in the dreams. Nate is warm and solid and real beneath him, and Cale wants to peel the rest of their clothes off and let his hands wander, but he can’t do that.

“We really should talk first,” he insists, and Nate licks a mean line up his neck, tongue slick and hot. “Nate.”

He hums in reply and nips at Cale’s earlobe, teeth teasing out a moan.

“Nate.”

“Fuck, you sound so good,” he groans and slides a hand down Cale’s side to tease at the waistband of his jeans, fingers skating over the skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake.

“Nate, we need to talk, seriously.”

“What is there to talk about?” he asks and traces the button of Cale’s jeans slowly, round and round. “I want this; you want this. And if you stop talking, we can have it.”

Mustering his strength, Cale grabs Nate’s wrist and holds it still. “What even is this?” he asks, desperate to understand. “What are we doing?” Nate gives him a withering look, but Cale holds firm. “I don’t just mean this, right now. I mean all of it. I mean the last six months and the crazy dreams that I think you might have had too because there’s no other explanation for the things you know—”

“I had the dreams all summer,” Nate tells him, wrestling his wrist away, “but not since I’ve been back in Denver.”

Cale nods in thought and lets Nate undo the button of his jeans before stopping him again. “But what does it even mean that we had dreams about each other all summer? Were they dreams of the future? Were they different universes we could be living in? Were they visions?”

“Does it matter?”

“Does it—? Of course it matters!” Cale says, sitting back on his heels as he looks at Nate in disbelief.

Nate sits up with a bit more reluctance. “Why? All that really matters is that we both want this.”

“But what if we only want this because of the dreams? What if we’re not really thinking straight and have both let ourselves be influenced by the dreams? What if we’re only doing this because we think we’re supposed to? What if we decide in a month or a year that we don’t actually want this and that it was just a crazy thing brought on by the dreams?”

Nate lays a hand on his knee and strokes his thumb slowly over the material, looking at Cale fondly. “I don’t think any of that is actually important.”

“But it is! I don’t want us to jump into something because we think we’re supposed to or because we assume that’s the way things are going to be. I don’t want to do something now or later that we’ll end up regretting. I don’t want—”

“Cale.”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

Anything else he had planned to say slips away immediately as his eyes go wide. “What?” he asks, weak and airy, feeling lightheaded.

“I love you,” he repeats and holds Cale’s gaze, intent and focused, as he speaks.

“You don’t—no.” Cale says. “You can’t love me. You barely know me.”

“I can, and I do.” He says it calmly, eyes never leaving Cale’s face.

“You just love the person who was in your dreams,” he reasons because that’s the only thing that makes sense, that’s the only way Nate could say those words and mean them.

“Sure,” Nate agrees easily, “but only because he’s you.”

“You mean because I’m him.”

“No, I don’t.”

Cale gives him a dubious look, and Nate sighs, lying back against the cushions and holding an arm out for Cale in silent invitation.

Warily, Cale fits himself against Nate, looping an arm and a leg over him as he settles into the space made for him. When he’s finally comfortable, Nate wraps an arm around him and presses a gentle kiss to his hair, nosing along his forehead until Cale can’t help but smile.

“I already thought you were amazing before the dreams even started,” Nate begins, and Cale flushes, quietly pleased. “The way that you came in last season and just kicked ass, it was insane. You showed up and did your thing, super calm and zen, even though you’d never played a single game in the NHL. It was incredible.

“And you were—are—the nicest person I’ve ever met, polite and friendly and always smiling. Like nothing ever seems to get you down, and I know that’s not true, but even when things aren’t great, you’re still there with a smile, like you know things will get better, like you’re going to make them better somehow.”

Cale burrows further into Nate’s arms, pressing his face to his neck to hide the torrent of emotions surely painted across his features.

“And you work harder than anyone I know,” Nate continues, “and I know a hell of a lot of people who work hard, so that’s really saying something. You’re always watching film or working out in the gym or practicing something on the ice, and it makes me want to be better, to work harder than I do because I don’t want to be left behind. You’re going to do amazing things; you already do. And I want to be there for all of it, want to be a part of making it happen.”

Cale takes a couple deep breaths, and Nate shudders when his lips ghost over his skin.

“I already knew all of that before the dreams, but once they started, I realized I could have a hell of a lot more with you than a couple Stanley Cups. It was weird at first,” he admits, sounding embarrassed, and Cale presses a kiss to his throat in understanding. “I was honestly freaking out the first time I woke up with you, but it got easier each time, and I kind of started to hate waking up in real life because you were never really there.”

Cale’s heart clenches, thinking about Nate waking up alone in Grand Lake and wishing Cale was there, and he feels awful for ever wanting the dreams to go away.

“I didn’t want them to end, but they always did. Then, when I got here, I realized I should do something about it because I could have all of that for real. I could go to sleep next to you and wake up next to you outside of the dreams.”

He pauses, and Cale swallows thickly, shame pooling in his stomach. “But I didn’t let you.”

“No,” Nate breathes out in agreement and tightens his arm around Cale. “You didn’t, and I thought it was me. I thought I was probably being too weird or forward about it, and you didn’t know how to turn me down, so you just decided to avoid me.”

Cale props himself up to look at Nate. “I’m sorry,” he says earnestly. “I didn’t know, and I didn’t think I’d be able to act normal around you, so I thought it would be easier not to be around you at all, that way I wouldn’t even be tempted to do or say anything that could mess things up.”

“How’d that turn out?” Nate grumbles, fingers skimming over the bare skin of Cale’s back, and he presses into the touch with a grin.

“Overall, pretty well. Turns out I should’ve been more worried about how much you want all up on this instead of you not wanting anything to do with me.”

Nate smirks, lascivious and sharp. “Up on that, down on it. I’ll take it however I can get it.”

Cale’s nose crinkles.

“Still not impressed with my smooth lines?”

The still intrigues Cale, and he suddenly wants to know about every dream Nate had, wants to compare and put the pieces together like a puzzle. But in the same moment, the fatigue crashes over him, weeks and months of poor sleep catching up to him between one breath and the next.

“There’s a story there that I want to hear,” he says, and Nate smiles, “but I’m too tired to appreciate it right now. Like, I could fall asleep in the next two seconds.”

Nate makes a sad, questioning sound. “Haven’t slept well?” he asks, and Cale shakes his head.

“The bed was empty and so were my dreams, and I didn’t know what to do about any of it.”

With an understanding nod, Nate lifts a hand and cups Cale’s cheek, thumb sweeping across the skin in soothing strokes. “It was also the wrong bed,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Yeah?”

Nate hums. “I have a great bed. You’d love it. I’d love you in it.”

Eyes crinkling, Cale smiles down at him. “I’m sure you meant that in some cute, romantic way, but it really just came across as a bad innuendo.”

“It was a romantic innuendo. Best of both worlds.”

 With a snort, Cale climbs off of Nate and the couch. “How about we worry about the romance and innuendo tomorrow?” he says, reaching a hand out to help Nate up. “Because I really wasn’t kidding. I could fall asleep on my feet right now.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” Nate replies and lets Cale help him up. “You’d end up busting your face on the coffee table, and we’d have to explain to all the guys what you were doing at my house at three in the morning. They would absolutely not believe us, and we’d have to deal with them coming up with crazy conspiracy theories about our sex life for the rest of forever.”

Cale rolls his eyes and starts in the direction of the bedroom, fingers tangling with Nate’s. “We wouldn’t want that, especially since we don’t even have a sex life.”

“But we will,” Nate says. There’s a question hidden in the words, and Cale glances back at him.

“We definitely will,” he answers confidently and pulls Nate through the bedroom door. “But not until I’ve gotten a full night’s sleep because I tried to have sex with you in the dreams, but I woke up every time, so there’s no way I’m going to be anything but one hundred percent awake when we finally have sex.”

He kicks his shoes off, drops his jeans to the floor, and crawls under the covers. Nate grins at him.

“What?” Cale asks, feeling self-conscious.

“You know where my room is,” he says and follows Cale’s example, shucking his jeans before climbing into bed.

“Thought it was our room,” Cale grumbles and sinks back into Nate’s warmth when he spoons up against him, arms and legs sliding into place easily.

Nate presses a kiss to his shoulder, and Cale can feel him smile against his skin, soft and pleased. “It is.”

With a content grin, Cale lays an arm over Nate’s, slots their fingers together, and is only awake long enough to think about how much better that’ll feel when they have matching rings.

It’s the best sleep he’s had in months.


End file.
